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Melchiour, you seem to be equating human behaviour to a 'natural' process (as much as that can be said). You would agree it is not particularly natural for me to take my automatic rifle and rid the world of rhino, no?

What do tuna eat? They aren't that picky-lobsters, crabs, shrimps, and barnacles. clams, snails, oysters and mussels, and even each other.
Read more at Suite101: Sea Creatures 101: The Life of Your Seafood: Tuna http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/aquatic_animals/106468#ixzz0ielGwx6A


Man those tuna are mean, picking on those poor hapless shrimp, oysters, and snails. Butchers!
Save our snails! Eat a tuna!*

*Brought to you by the Save our Snails Alliance, a political action committee founded by the Escargo Alliance, The EA, protecting the rights of those who eat icky things for 175 years.

Polar Bears are cool though, and man they love coca cola!

The instrument you use makes no impact on what you do. Does a monkey that uses a tool to pry ants out of a anthill become morally corrupt because he used a tool. Would it be better if humans killed a rhino with a sharp stick? The tool doesn't matter. Humans killing another species is just that, its not good, its not bad, its the way things work out.

It's not about good and evil. Moral judgements don't really come into it. It's about sound, logical decision versus poor illigical decision. The problem lies in determining which is the right decision. I'm in favour of preserving food fish species. I've yet to hear a particularly good argument against it.

So killing on an industrial and mechanical scale is the same as hunting with a spear because the tool doesn't matter? There is a big difference between hunting for need to provide for yourself and family's immediate needs and mass trawler fishing for profit.

Of course if they stop tuna fishing, I'll miss out on some delicious sushi.....otoro sashimi...... *drool*.... what's with the double posting?

on a lighter note,

Is there? Explain how, exactly.
What do you think this "profit" goes towards, if not, in the end, sustaining people.

Da Boss - I take the point but it's a somewhat laboured point. If I fish every day, catching a fish a day to feed myself then that is quite different to trawling for fish once a week and selling them for profit, The volumes are different for a start.

filbert wrote:So killing on an industrial and mechanical scale is the same as hunting with a spear because the tool doesn't matter? There is a big difference between hunting for need to provide for yourself and family's immediate needs and mass trawler fishing for profit.

Killing is killing.

If I kill someone with a gun or my hands, I did the same deed. Reasons are irrelevant. People are trying to add moral ideas, which is an abstract thing, to a natural process of species. IMO.


As a side note. I am not saying I agree with fishing to extinction. I am only saying making a judgement on human nature doesn't work. I would be rather happy if all the species staid plentiful, but I am not going to judge someone else in a situation I can not comprehend, nor on a trait I deem to be part of human nature.

People are screwed up animals, but we are animals.

Yeah, definitely. But substinence is different from living as we class it in the first world. I think we want to lift people out of substinence. I'm all for controls and quotas on fishing, I don't think we do enough at all currently. I just think it's REALLY important not to demonise the poor sods working in that dangerous, unforgiving industry.
They need help, not judgemental comments.

ounumen wrote:As far as polar bears I am pretty sure information has been released showing the population is stable and rapidly growing. Global warming nut jobs seem to have the loudest voice. Just because you screem louder does not make it right.

You know the recorded sightings increases are due to them being forced south right, as the ice is receding. You do understand that?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090406-sea-ice-younger.html



And no bunker, I don't belong to PETA, I do make charitable contributions to a couple of ecological organisations.

Population figures on something like polar bears are always really dodgey. I think MGS has a viable counter hypothesis there.

I think polar bears are probably screwed. Sad. The one in Dublin Zoo put me off zoos for life as a kid. Animal like that in a victorian style zoo is heartbreaking.

And I apologise for any misunderstanding over the thread title, it has been amended.

This discussion reminds me of a Simpsons' episode where Bart is working for the local mafia guy, Fat Tony. Fat Tony is giving Bart a 'lesson' in morals.

Tony, "Would it be wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your family, if they were hungry?"
Bart, "Well, I guess not."
Tony, "What if your family didn't like bread, but they liked someting like...oh, cigarettes instead. Would it be wrong to steal cigarettes?"
Bart, "Well, I guess not."
Tony, "What if your family didn't want to eat the cigarettes. So, you sold them to buy the bread, would that be wrong?"

People need to eat. People eat meat. Now, there's balance in the world. Eating a species into extinction means there is no more of that yummy-yummy giant blue tuna left. If you hunt it in moderation, you hopefully have an infinite supply of it.

And similarily to the Simpsons,
"Is it wrong to hunt tuna to feed your family?"
"I guess not."
"What if your family likes more than tuna. Would it be wrong to sell some of the tuna to buy bread?"

There's very few people who live in an industrialized country that have to hunt for food. We fish or farm tasty animals (because there's no market for ones that taste bad).

Bunker wrote:Yeah, shame on us for not wanting to completely eradicate some of our communities who rely on fishing in order to survive.

How dare we.

How's the weather up there on your high horse?

How is the Newfoundland fishing community doing?

Bunker wrote:some of our communities who rely on fishing in order to survive.

Which communities are these please and what bearing does this have on any polar bear culling?
just curious and not trying to wind up

Kilkrazy wrote:

Bunker wrote:Yeah, shame on us for not wanting to completely eradicate some of our communities who rely on fishing in order to survive.

How dare we.

How's the weather up there on your high horse?

How is the Newfoundland fishing community doing?

Not so good apparently, it seems they 'over-fished' whatever that means...?

wiki wrote:Cod fishing in Newfoundland was carried out at a subsistence level for centuries, but large scale fishing began shortly after the European discovery of the North American continent in 1492, with the waters being found to be preternaturally plentiful, and ended after intense overfishing with the collapse of the fisheries in the 1990s.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Bunker wrote:Yeah, shame on us for not wanting to completely eradicate some of our communities who rely on fishing in order to survive.

How dare we.

How's the weather up there on your high horse?

How is the Newfoundland fishing community doing?

Not as good as their oil-drilling community, which the Natives up North don't have the luxury of being able to switch to.

Try harder

People have to eat to live, and they need jobs too.

40,000 jobs were lost in the Grand Banks fishing collapse, and there are no more cod there for people to eat.

Is that what people want to happen in tuna or other fisheries?

You're still dodging the point that overfishing a species to extinction not only ends the species, but screws the people economically in the long run.

A possible middle ground would be to avoid an outright ban and instead go for a serious reduction in the amount that can be caught. A reduction in supply drives up prices so its not as devastating as a total ban or even as sever an economic impact as the percentage reduction might suggest.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Bunker wrote:Yeah, shame on us for not wanting to completely eradicate some of our communities who rely on fishing in order to survive.

How dare we.

How's the weather up there on your high horse?

How is the Newfoundland fishing community doing?

Not so good apparently, it seems they 'over-fished' whatever that means...?

wiki wrote:Cod fishing in Newfoundland was carried out at a subsistence level for centuries, but large scale fishing began shortly after the European discovery of the North American continent in 1492, with the waters being found to be preternaturally plentiful, and ended after intense overfishing with the collapse of the fisheries in the 1990s.

Still poor since EU members continue to factory fish the region.

Does that justify overfishing?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I asked my wife what she thinks of the failure of the ban and she is pleased because eating tuna is part of Japan's tradition.

Bunker wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Bunker wrote:Yeah, shame on us for not wanting to completely eradicate some of our communities who rely on fishing in order to survive.

How dare we.

How's the weather up there on your high horse?

How is the Newfoundland fishing community doing?

Not as good as their oil-drilling community, which the Natives up North don't have the luxury of being able to switch to.

Try harder

bluefin tuna is fished because of it's high price as a delicacy. If it is continued to be fished at current levels, it will be extinct. fact.

Excluding bluefin, most other forms of tuna are abundant, in some cases even known as "the rat of the sea." Arguing that the cease in fishing bluefin tuna will damage native communities is complete fail.

Melchiour wrote:One species driving another to extinction is the process our world works with. It has happened before humans, it will happen after. Humanity is one species imp0acting another, it happens. Globally the world will survive, things will be impacted and things will change sure, but the world will still spin.

Humans are still animals. No one calls an animal that eats another to extinction immoral. That is all we are doing really. The idea that we should save another species seems misguided.

It's no way near as simple as that. Humans are a more consumptuous species than has ever existed on earth and it's increasing at an exponential rate. "it happens" no, it's never happened before. We only have to expect humantys population to cary on the same way it has done for it's sentient history and at some point it wont be able to support itself. Overfishing a food source to extinciton does not help.

Bunker wrote:Yeah, shame on us for not wanting to completely eradicate some of our communities who rely on fishing in order to survive.

How dare we.

How's the weather up there on your high horse?

This isn't a moral issue, this is about making sure that we can sustain fishing for generations to come. At present rates we will fish tuna into extinction very shortly, so you can decry your opponents as high minded environmentalists all you want, but that'll do stuff all to protect these communities when the fish are gone.


And the argument about the small native guys just getting by is bollocks. A dude in a canoe isn't fishing tuna into extinction, its commercial boats using commercial techniques. The Inuit and their income could be protected by granting licences limiting the haul taken per year. It would on'y be major commercial operations that'd find their hauls cut, the Inuit would earn more money as they'd get a much better price.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melchiour wrote:One species driving another to extinction is the process our world works with. It has happened before humans, it will happen after. Humanity is one species imp0acting another, it happens. Globally the world will survive, things will be impacted and things will change sure, but the world will still spin.

Humans are still animals. No one calls an animal that eats another to extinction immoral. That is all we are doing really. The idea that we should save another species seems misguided.

We like eating tuna. If we fish them into extinction there won't be any more tuna to eat. This isn't morality, this is enlightened self interest. Do you understand?

I lived amongst the inuit for several years to better understand the struggle of man vs. nature. It would be a shame to see them hurt by this.

whatwhat wrote:Humans are a more populous species than has ever existed on earth and it's increasing at an exponential rate.

Not really. Some species of insects have us beat by several orders of magnitude. I'd have to do some more digging but so do some rodents as well and I'm pretty sure some species of fish.

Tyyr wrote:Not really. Some species of insects have us beat by several orders of magnitude. I'd have to do some more digging but so do some rodents as well and I'm pretty sure some species of fish.

Yes you're right, of course.

whatwhat wrote:Humans are a more consumptuous species than has ever existed on earth and it's increasing at an exponential rate.

Fixed, point intact.

Tyyr wrote:Not really. Some species of insects have us beat by several orders of magnitude. I'd have to do some more digging but so do some rodents as well and I'm pretty sure some species of fish.

The bio-mass of creatures at the bottom of the food chain needs to outweigh the top by several magnitudes for the whole thing to work. You need a hell of a lot more cows and chickens than people to keep us all fed, for instance.

The issue isn't total population, and never will be. The issues are resource consumption and preservation. To the extent that we overfish tuna so that there are no tuna for future generations is the extent of the problem. Right now it is a big problem.

Bunker wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:



Who the hell is in forced poverty in Canada? What the hell is the GNP of that country?

A LOT of the Native communities further up North are barely holding on, and rely heavily on fishing, hunting and farming to give their communities a chance. Banning tuna fishing would in essence be cutting out one of their major sources of income. Do some research before you condemn an entire country of people because you don't understand that not all of them live the same way. Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal =/= Canada.


Nice try with the "insulting to people in real 3rd world nations" bit. You stay classy.

You still haven't answered: Are you a member of PETA?

Edit just read through the posts some more, Sebster got it.