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My point point Kanluwen, is that we've never used a animals relative intelligence as a reason to not eat them. Dogs are very smart and loving and they still eat them in China.
Ketara wrote:My point point Kanluwen, is that we've never used a animals relative intelligence as a reason to not eat them. Dogs are very smart and loving and they still eat them in China.
True, but that doesn't make eating dogs right!
Like I said, my whole problem with it is that Japan tries to justify it as research. Could care less about the intelligence of whales, but just come out and say it's commercial fishing rather than research fishing.
It's not even really commercial. If it was then it would have died out entirely. The market for whale meat in Japan is simply not there. The government has to pump money into the venture just so they can break even.
mattyrm wrote: I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.
I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.
Tyyr wrote:It's not even really commercial. If it was then it would have died out entirely. The market for whale meat in Japan is simply not there. The government has to pump money into the venture just so they can break even.
Except it's not just 'whale meat' that's used. They can sell all the other internal organs to ass-backwards countries that still have shamanistic/totemic traditions.
It's the same as the market for Tiger Testicles, etc:
There's no "real" market for tiger meat...but when you get into placebos courtesy of tradition?
You've got a HUGE market.
Ketara wrote:Pigs are pretty smart too, and we eat plenty of them.
I wouldn't say pigs are "pretty smart". They're highly imitative from what I've read, but they also are a fantastic example of Pavlovian responses.
If there's some whale equivalent of bacon I don't care how smart they are, harpoon the bastards.
There is whale bacon in Japan and my wife refuses to buy it for me.
I need to learn how to read the Japanese for 'whale' then I can sneak a bit into the shopping when she isn't looking.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
garret wrote:Then it maakes me wonder. Is the govt just doing this to piss of the rest of the world? If so. then the japanese govt really has a pair.
Not really, most people don't care that much. It's the Australians who are most exercised about it. Even then the Sea Shepherd are pretty much a fringe group I believe.
If the Japanese started slaughtering all the whales and dolphins they could get to it would be a different matter.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/02/28 19:18:35
Tyyr wrote:It's not even really commercial. If it was then it would have died out entirely. The market for whale meat in Japan is simply not there. The government has to pump money into the venture just so they can break even.
Except it's not just 'whale meat' that's used. They can sell all the other internal organs to ass-backwards countries that still have shamanistic/totemic traditions.
It's the same as the market for Tiger Testicles, etc:
There's no "real" market for tiger meat...but when you get into placebos courtesy of tradition?
You've got a HUGE market.
Uhh, no not really. If this market existed then there would be no need to subsidize the whaling industry. They have to subsidize the whaling industry there fore...
There is whale bacon in Japan and my wife refuses to buy it for me.
I should have specified that it be as tasty as bacon from a hog. Though if it's flavored with the tears of a thousand PETA protesters I can't imagine it being anything but divine.
mattyrm wrote: I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.
I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.
Let me respecify:
The market is, while huge for what it is(because let's face it there's not many countries left that want whale nads for a cure-all), is still poor enough that they're saying that it's for research.
THAT is what annoys myself to no end about the situation. Man the feth up and say you're just whaling for the hell of it and whale bacon.
I don't disagree with you that it's a sham excuse for commercial whaling, what I'm saying is that even with the small whaling fleet that exists there isn't enough of a market to sustain it. There might be people out there dying for minke whale balls but unless they're willing to pay for them and pay enough to cover expenses then they aren't part of the market.
mattyrm wrote: I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.
I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.
Don't we always hear about how it's better to die a free man than live as a slave?
As for the 'research fleet'. Maybe they are doing research. Like, say, a psychology study to see how crazy they can drive the people who care about whales because whales get lots of publicity, but don't care for animals who haven't had movies about them/aren't really big/are more tasty.
The Battle Report Master wrote:i had a freind come round a few weeks ago to have a 40k apocalpocalpse game i was guards men he was space maines.... my first turn was 4 bonbaonbardlements... jacobs turn to he didnt have one i phased out.
This space for rent, contact Gwar! for rights to this space.
Tantras wrote: Logically speaking, that makes perfect sense and I understand and agree entirely... but is it RAW?
The Japanese whaling programme is a pork barrel project by which the government pumps billions of yen per year into the one or two port cities which have whaling ships.
The actual market demand is very low and it would not be commercially viable without the government subsidy.
Orkestra wrote:As for the 'research fleet'. Maybe they are doing research.
Actually they are, the... ugh, been about a month or two so I forgot the exact name, Whaling Commission has actually stated that the research they do on whale populations is top notch.
mattyrm wrote: I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.
I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.
Kilkrazy wrote:
Not really, most people don't care that much. It's the Australians who are most exercised about it. Even then the Sea Shepherd are pretty much a fringe group I believe.
There are enough protesters, between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, to ensure that the whaling fleet regularly comes up 33% short of quota.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/02/28 21:38:54
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Its a tough one for me.. im a real animal lover, i think it would be a real tragedy for any creature to be extinct. But at the same time, i absolutely hate hippys.
Its a tough one, but i dont think i can in good conscience support all these save the whale types. And the same with people slating the chinese because they eat dogs and cats. Some cultures treat cows as sacred and we are happy to eat them. Since when did we become the supreme overlords of the rest of the world?
I personally wouldnt eat a dog, but ive no issue with people that do for fear of looking like a hypocrite..
Its a tough one to be sure, but i think i would lol if some Japanese Whalers impaled a hippy with a harpoon gun.
We are arming Syrian rebels who support ISIS, who is fighting Iran, who is fighting Iraq who we also support against ISIS, while fighting Kurds who we support while they are fighting Syrian rebels.
None of the whales the Japanese hunt are even remotely endangered nor are the quantities taken a significant portion of the population. Your conscience is clear when rooting for the Japanese vs. the Hippies from that perspective.
mattyrm wrote: I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.
I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.
Kilkrazy wrote:Is there intelligent life on Dakka?
No, it's a rock, no indigenous life...
Of course, there was life, and it was nasty...
(amost like unicorn robot attack)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/03/01 12:07:16
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
The ethical treatment of animals produced for food should be a priority.
The consuming of carnivores for food is obscenely low yield, since there must be vegetation produced to produce the animals that are feeding the animals (yes, the dogs are often fed scraps and grain, consider how much food for people the grain would have produced over the lifespan of the dog). The Chinese and other far eastern nations consuming carnivores, with their already huge population, is distinctly inefficient.
The dogs and cats and indeed most forms of life (read virtually anything) that the chinese consume are kept in appalling conditions and are killed in needlessly cruel ways.
Whales are considerably more intelligent than pigs. They are far from being commonplace (does an animal really need to reach levels of endangerment before we take steps to stop their depopulation?), are an apex and the Japanese enjoy a first world economy and farmed livestock. There is no need to hunt this animal, it is highly intelligent and it's numbers are not huge, with pollution, climate change and the decimation of fish and krill stocks, it is just excessive and parallels can certainly be drawn to the other less than considerate practices of the Japanese when it comes to dining.
In contrast to what Tyyr has told you, in regard to the Minke Whale, whilst the IUCN Red List labels the northern species as Least Concern (on a sliding scale of endangerment, which means it is still at risk) CITES list both of the species in Appendix I (threatened with extinction) with the exception of the West Greenland stock, which is given in Appendix II (trade controls urgently required to avoid extinction).
Automatically Appended Next Post: I have hunted and killed animals for food since I was a child. I have shot and killed and skinned and gutted rabbit, pigeon, duck and fish.
Ethical animal treatment is not difficult. Killing something as swiftly as possible and the minimising of suffering should be priority.
Watch the video on this site and understand why I have a problem with these people.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/03/01 12:58:59
Kilkrazy wrote:
Not really, most people don't care that much. It's the Australians who are most exercised about it. Even then the Sea Shepherd are pretty much a fringe group I believe.
There are enough protesters, between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, to ensure that the whaling fleet regularly comes up 33% short of quota.
It's not a very big whaling fleet, only seven ships.
Money rather than lots of crew is needed to keep the protestor ships going. A couple of sympathetic multimillionaires is all you would need.
I am aware that Greenpeace has fairly broad support across a variety of environmental issues.
MeanGreenStompa wrote:In contrast to what Tyyr has told you, in regard to the Minke Whale, whilst the IUCN Red List labels the northern species as Least Concern (on a sliding scale of endangerment, which means it is still at risk) CITES list both of the species in Appendix I (threatened with extinction) with the exception of the West Greenland stock, which is given in Appendix II (trade controls urgently required to avoid extinction).
The Southern Minke Whale population is estimated at 660,000 animals with a comparatively tight confidence interval. The Japanese harvest approximately 500 of these whales per year. 0.076% of the population per year. I'm not seeing the eminent danger to the species here.
mattyrm wrote: I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.
I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.
The debat has become completely independent of the actual numbers of whales and sustainable catch.
There isn't a commercial market for whale meat anymore. Japan can't even sell the small amount they have now to their own consumers. They only reason they keep whaling is as a government boondoggle/pork barrel project.
The antis are caught up in moral/emotional outrage.
Governments are involved (the IWC) but it really can't be high on anyone's agenda.
The best argument against deregulated whaling is that someone like the Chinese would probably scoop them all up to sell to Africa. That's just speculation by me, though.
-to many points to bother to count.
