International Whaling Commission meeting on May 28

The reason why they're critical as stated in the article is because their bodies provide nourishment when they decompose for alot of marine life. Alot of species such as killer whales and sharks also feed on whales as a regular source of food. As for the WWF's numbers being inflated, I'm sorry but I can't simply throw them away and start accepting numbers from the IWC. They both have entrenched interests. I'd say something in the middle is more acceptable, but no matter what average you take its still alot less than there used to be. Hundreds of thousands of whales going missing over the course of just a century is going to have a huge impact on the oceans ecosystems especially if combined with massive commercial fishing operations. The connection is clear in my humble opinion.

Also, to clarify, when I said cows dont affect the ecosystem I didn't mean that they have zero impact. As I said, clear-cutting forest for farmland, animal manure run-off into local water tables (e.coli bacteria) and yes, methane as you said, they all impact us. But, there are no natural predators who prey on wild cows that would go extinct due to a lack of cows, same with sheep, they have been domesticated for roughly 10,000 years and are not a keystone of worlds ecosystems aside from being a mainly human food source. The closest thing to a wild cow I can think of is perhaps water buffalo in Africa which the large cat family and crocodiles still rely on for food.

I agree that, if their numbers are increasing it seems as though there's no reason why we can't kill a few, but letting their numbers increase further holds more benefit in the long run than trimming the population down for the benefit of commercial whalers. As I stated in a previous post, the tradition of eating whale meat seems to hold a nostalgic value for the modern Japanese public at best. Demand is low, and there is already enough frozen meat to meet the demand for quite some time.

You all have good arguments, and know a lot more about all this than I do! My only argument is that it doesn't "feel" right to me somehow to kill any whales, except the way small communities do it for subsistence living. Whales don't have a chance against huge ships and harpoons. I saw an exhibit once on an Eskimo tribe that hunts whales for survival, and their belief was that the whale they caught (which was maybe one per year) "agreed" to be caught so that they could survive. Commercial whaling ships most probably don't relate to the whales like this, and wouldn't care if the whales agreed to be caught or not. At least in subsistence hunting there is a relationship with nature, a give and take, and not just take like with commercial hunting.

I think it doesn't "feel" right to hunt any animal... But why not whales, and why deers, for example? The point is that most people who oppose to whaling do so because of purely "moral" reasons, not for ecological, scientific or economic ones...

For a large number of Japanese, eating whale is not shocking. Many of them don't - it is usually quite expensive, as a matter of fact, but most of them agree that it does, indeed, "feel" right to eat them.

And if the species is not endangered, there is no reason, IMO, not to allow that.

sanji

I'd rather not see any animal hunted, except by people who need them to survive. I realize that whale hunting and eating is a very old tradition in Japan and that this isn't something that can change quickly. Whether whaling is a good thing or not is an argument that will probably go on for decades, if not centuries! But as some animal rights groups say, people have to speak up for animals because they can't speak for themselves. I think it's a good sign that so many people are fighting to protect animals.

Update from WSPA

Here is an update from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (UK):

World Animal Protection | Move the world to protect animals

WSPA pressure pays off at the IWC


The 59th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) wrapped up in Alaska last week, with WSPA pressing home its message of protecting whale welfare.

Pressure from thousands of concerned WSPA supporters led to more than 20 countries making strong statements of concern for whale welfare – the most seen at any year's meeting. This unprecedented achievement represents the progress on welfare that's been made during the years WSPA has attended the IWC.

Departing UK Prime Minister Tony Blair responded to UK public pressure – generated by a WSPA petition – to deliver a statement in favour of continuing the ban on whaling. Such a high level intervention by a head of state has never before been made on the welfare concerns of whaling.

Mr Blair said: ﾂ"We have been and will remain strong advocates for a moratorium on commercial whaling.ﾂ"

He went on to cite both conservation and animal welfare as the reasons why the ban should remain in place and be fully observed by all members of the IWC. He added that whaling resulted in unavoidable levels of suffering and that whale-watching was a more appropriate and sustainable use of whales.

Around 2,500 whales will be killed using inhumane methods over the next year. WSPA will be continuing their work to ensure the welfare of these animals is made a priority.

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bakaKanadajin,

Why wouldn't you accept the IWC's numbers? The figures that have been bandied about by some other people have been criticised by the IWC's Scientific Committee, including scientists that are heavily critical of whaling. For example, IWC Scientific Committee member Phillip Clapham (who's political anti-whaling rhetoric Greenpeace has recently borrowed) said of the inflated figures: "It's completely out of the realm of reality".

It's true that most stocks of whales are still recovering, but the fact is that they are by and large recovering (with perhaps Northern Right and Western Pacific Grey whales as two notable exceptions). Even the blue whale is now recognised to be recovering - and it's the IWC Scientific Committee who is doing this research, not some bunch of scaremongerers who ask everyone for donations so they can "save the whales".

You talk about "Hundreds of thousands of whales going missing ... going to have a huge impact on the oceans ecosystems" - well hey, that's already happened, and it started happening when the industrializing nations started hunting whales like there was no tomorrow back in the 1800's. Whales have been recovering since protection, which were mostly put in place during the 1960's and 1970's (in fact only a couple of non-depleted stocks of whales actually got protection from commercial whaling when the "moratorium" was introduced). You talk about the effects on ocean ecosystems of whales going missing - what's been happening since the 1970's is many whale stocks recovering at rates of around 5% and 10% each year - what effect do you think that will have on the ecosystem?

Humans taking small numbers of whales won't see a reversal of the trend - it will only see rates of growth of between maybe 4.5% and 9.5% each year, instead of between 5% and 10%.

I also agree that we should let numbers increase further. We should let them increase more so that these stocks can recover to higher levels which could sustain even larger levels of harvest, providing humans with more eco-friendly food.

Your comment that "trimming the population down for the benefit of commercial whalers" is backwards. The commercial whalers want larger stocks of whales. If you have a stock of 20,000 whales increasing at 5% each year, that's 1,000 extra whales each year. If you only have a stock of 10,000 whales it's only 500 extra whales each year. It's pretty obvious which is of greater benefit to an industry that wants to stay in business for an indefinite period of time. The greater the sizes of whale stocks, the more profitable sustainable whaling can be. All this requires is strong regulation to ensure that short term interests aren't favoured over long term interests - that's just a matter of creating the right incentives.

Finally, whale meat demand is relatively low compared to other products, but there is hardly any whale meat in stock. Japan has more than a million tonnes of marine products in frozen storage at any point in time. The total of whale meat stockpile sizes around the nation fluctuate between 2,000 and 6,000 tonnes each year. Over the last 12 months the average volume of stock leaving stockpiles each month was 750 tonnes. Current supplies will only last until around October or November.

As I said in my previous post, I wouldn't take either the WWF's or IWC's numbers at face value, as each have entrenched interests. So I'm discounting everyone equally. One side wants the moratorium lifted, the other wants it kept, so they're going to manipulate statistics slightly to augment their positions. If I really had to pick and choose I'd just settle on something in between the two groups. At any rate, I preferred the simple science behind the article I'd found, which was that, no matter what the current stocks are, we've severely underestimated the impact that commercial whaling had on the original numbers so therefore we can't afford to lift the moratorium yet. By it's own formulae, the IWC has to wait until stocks reach a certain percentage of the original estimates, but according to new research we're finding the original estimates to be severely undervalued. So by its own rules the IWC would have to wait for stocks to reach these new previous values. Furthermore, if they're severely undervalued, the impact on the world's oceans becomes more troubling. So either way I think maintianing the moratorium is a good move.

Also I think you may have misinterpreted my remark "trimming the population down for the benefit of commercial whalers". I can appreciate that more whales = better business for whalers. What I meant was that allowing a few thousand whales to be killed each year for the benefit of commercial interests would amount to 'trimming' the growth of the stocks, it's like limiting trees to a certain size by pruning them. I don't see the benefit in allowing growth to slow down like that, especially since in light of new scientific research we are learning that we may have devastated the whale population far worse than originally thought.

But as you said, we should allow numbers to increase so as to provide more food and sustainable oceanic development (or at least contribute to that cause). I agree there, and I also agree that a small amount of whaling wouldn't lead to a reversal of the trend but as I stated above it would slow it down, even a few percent is too much and thats just my opinion. But based on how much catching up there is to do I think every bit counts. If you lift the ban and everyone takes .5% it adds up.

Mmmm, I still don't understand why you have a problem with the IWC's numbers. Personally I don't see that the IWC's Scientific Committee has entrenched interests. This is a committee made up of (hundreds of) scientists delegated to it by IWC contracting governments (which are of a mixture of "pro-whaling" and "anti-whaling" persuasion), as well as other experts.
You talk about discounting everyone equally, but still you do opt to go with the figures of Roman and Palumbi. Roman and Palumbi participated in the IWC Scientific Committee and presented their findings, but it didn't go down so well:
(I can't post the link but this is from the IWC homepage
"... initial pre-whaling population sizes of humpback, fin and common minke whales in the North Atlantic have considerably more uncertainty than reported, and can not be considered reliable estimates of immediate pre-whaling population size"
Again, this evaluation was from a committee made up of scientists both nominated by various governments as well as non-government delegated experts.
You are exactly right to compare whaling to "limiting trees to a certain size by pruning them". Unfortunately we can't have populations of whales at 100% of their natural carrying capacity and also harvest a yield from it at the same time. That is, we can't have our cake and eat it too
There are benefits from hunting for both whaling people and the consumers of whale products. I am guessing you don't personally benefit from it as you aren't jumping up and down enthusiastically about it, but if we have some empathy for our fellow human beings who do make their living out of whaling and also the consumers of whale products, I think we should be tolerant of the activity in recognition of the benefits that it brings them - to the extent that the activity is sustainable and allows future generations of humans to benefit as well, if they so please.
Finally, you say: "If you lift the ban and everyone takes .5% it adds up."
Under a good system, a catch quota should be decided upon biological considerations. So if the IWC (or some other organization) decides that say 500 whales from a given stock of whales is the catch limit, it doesn't mean that everyone gets to take 500, it means that the quota of 500 will have to be divided up amongst the interested parties, if it turns out that more than just a single party wants it.

Whaling does not destroy the environment and is very energy efficient. The biodiversity and habitat does not have to be destroyed and turned into agricultural land.

Whales live freely and are spared the prolonged suffering of factory-farm livestock.

Perhaps whales can live freely, but they are certainly not spared from suffering. I don't consider hacking them to death free from suffering.

Whales are shot to death. It is much less barbaric than what we do to cows or pigs.

Not all whales are shot to death...do some research.

They are shot to death with harpoons. You are the expert, please enlgithen me.

There are videos of how whaling ships kill whales, and sometimes it can take an hour or longer for the whale to die. I don't have a link to a whaling video right now, but this is one of how the fishermen in Taiji, Japan round up dolphins once a year and slaughter them:

www.glumbert.com/media/dolphin

Be warned that it's very upsetting to watch. I don't understand how the fishermen can be so unconscious of the dolphins' suffering.

The minke whale hunt has much stricter guidelines to how the hunt should be carried out than any other form of wild hunt on this planet.

If you have a better way to catch the dolphins than the way they do in Taji then you should come up with an idea. Telling that they should not eat them woun't do as you probably eat beef, pork and chicken and wear leather shoes.

No, I don't eat any meat or fish, and I'm getting rid of anything I've had that's made with leather. Why are you so angry about this?

I'm not angry. It seems as if you are angry. Well if you don't eat meat and fish, good on you. How come you start a thread on whaling on how evil it is when Japan takes I don't know, but less than 1000 a year and a millions of cows are being slaughtered each day. Good to see you have your prorities.

Factory farmed animals are bred to be killed and eaten - I believe none should be, but there isn't a chance they would go extinct. I think the practices on U.S. farms are just as horrid as the images of whale hunting. I wish more people would let these animals live and enjoy them as living beings instead of wanting to kill them. It isn't a matter of which country is doing what - we all come up short in my opinion in terms of compassionate living. Since this forum is about Japan, I'm talking about Japanese whale hunting - if it was about Norway, I'd probably talk about the fur farms in Norway; if about the U.S., the factory and foie gras farms that are too horrible to describe here.

By the way, are you Norwegian or Japanese (if that's not being too nosy)?

Factory farmed animals are bred to be killed and eaten

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A sustainable hunt of a natural renewable resources is the most eco friendly form of food production in the world today.

In contrast. Cow farming is not eco friendly besides, I would much rather be a free whale and get unlucky than Betty the Cow who roams around in the farm only to be slaughtered. You seem not to have a problem with Inuits hunting whales but Japan for some reason. Thats rather discriminatory way of thought you have.

Japan wants to hunt Minke whales. A whale spiecies which is not on any red list and is abdundant. Not every animal hunted goes extinct. There is such a thing called sustainable hunt. Japan is not intereseted in hunting every last whale to extinction. They go through the hassle of being a member of IWC and tell how many whales they want to hunt. Its a rather complicated long winded procedure.

Why are you so much against Japan hunting whales?

If there were no other food sources available I would say hunt what ever you need to live. There is no reason to kill whales. I don't think we could ever trust any country to self regulate themselves with how many whales they would slaughter. Every country that has a history of whaling did it to the point where they (we) almost caused the extinction of the species. We have never pushed cows or chickens to that limit. Any whale that isn't protected will eventually end up on the endangered list because humans can't be trusted to not over hunt them.

If there were no other food sources available I would say hunt what ever you need to live. There is no reason to kill whales. I

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There is no ned to kill cows but you do it plus THIS has much graver consequences to this planet than Minke whale hunting. Minke whales have been hunted for thouands of years and they are not even close to being endangered. Plus whale meat is the most eco friendly form of meat there is in this world today.

We domesticated cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese etc, for the sole pupose to have them close at hand so as to not have to hunt. It was keeping our food source close. A dairy cow isn't a "wild" animal anymore. Whale are wild and free, and if they eat fish that you want to eat, tough, you have a choice what to eat, they DON'T!

centrajapan said:

A sustainable hunt of a natural renewable resources is the most eco friendly form of food production in the world today.
In contrast. Cow farming is not eco friendly ..... Why are you so much against Japan hunting whales?

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I agree with you that animal farms are not eco-friendly - they're said to contribute even more toward global warming than cars (I don't have a link to a resource with me right now). I can understand your argument that hunting whales isn't the same as farming - it doesn't take up land and natural resources like water and grain that humans could use instead of farmed animals. My own personal argument is more about the way any animal is killed - the quicker the better.

I'm against any animal being used for profit by humans. Primitive people like the Inuits aren't using whales that way - they live closely with their environment and do what they need to survive.

I think this world due to more people on this planet and global warming have to think about ways to lead their lifestyle and food consumption. Go organic and buy local is what people are saying. There also is the thought of fish becoming extinct if humans keep up their fishing industry while if you whale more there will be more fish.

So kill off one species to eat another....sounds like a fair trade.

I think we should all stop over-eating and then there wouldn't be a problem.