Whaling

[biggun]

I think like any other Eco system, it has done wonders managing itself over the years. However man has intervened on so many occasions that the system has gone to pot. Yes whales were hunted to the point of them becoming endangered. Recent years have seen the numbers grow to the point they are effecting other marine stocks. Not saying it is right but somewhere along the line the Minke will have had natural predators to help keep their numbers in check. Man more than likely had a hand in that through the hunting of larger, predatory species. I would have to research it more to be precise.

As for the profitability aspect and ROI, I posed that question last summer. My answer was a finger pointing to the multiple monitors and radar, sonar scanners. He said an intelligent fisherman invests in these things. It is nothing like deadliest catch, dramatised for the screen. 300,000 grands worth of equipment means that they only cast nets, long line, trawl or hunt when they know they have no chance of failure.

I understand some peoples ethics regarding this topic. I, for one would have no problem whaling. In fact I have been offered work on the boats in the past, fishing or whaling I would do it providing it was from a sustainable source.

As for a crash in the industry. Profits were severely affected a couple of years ago after the crash of the Icelandic banks and economy. Icelandic fisherman were offloading their catches at a fraction of the value. Can't blame them to a certain extent as we all have mouths to feed. It did ruin the profits of a lot of Norwegian fishermen for a couple of seasons.

 

[woodworkingboy]

According to one article that i read, Norwegian whale hunters take less whales than what their government quota allows. One complaint against Norway however, beyond the fact that they hunt whales at all, is that they target a higher population of the female breeding minkes, for some reason. Some say it particularly endangers the population in the North Atlantic. Personally, I don't see government guidelines for allowable kill numbers, as anything but a response to pressure from an industry, and a slap in the face of the International Whaling Commission, which has put a complete moratorium on the practice of whaling, a ruling which most former countries that hunted whales now subscribe to. To that extent by hunting whales, Norway is just like Japan, if Japan continues whaling after the international court ruling. Whether the current practice of killing whales leaves sustainable numbers, seems to be only one aspect of the question of whether to kill them or not. Some will say that after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, whales are too complex evolved for a species of marine mammal to be hunted. Considering that argument, it is hard to look at whales and not see majestic creatures also inhabiting the planet. If so, is it man's responsibility to protect them? That certainly has been the case with some other mammals not generally much seen as desirable for food. Given what else we have to eat, beyond the fact that it tastes good, whale just doesn't seem so important a food source.

 

[stig]

I have nothing at all against the killing of whales or anything else as long as it is done in a controlled way.
It is the wiping out of entire species for fun and profit that gets my goat.

Remember the passenger pigeons, anyone?

There are plenty of those: Ivory billed woodpecker, Bachmann's warbler etc....

The American buffallo was saved at the very edge of extinction.

The blue whale population has never recovered from the days of big whaling and most likely never will, so let us leave those alone.

But that a bunch of Minke whales ( basically a family size dolphin BTW) gets put on Norwegian dinner tables doesn't make my piss boil at all.

There are plenty of whaling quotas given to native populations to hunt more or less traditionally from small boats, that is fine IMO.
They are certainly not making anything extinct.
On the Faroe islands they still drive schools of minke whales into bays of shallow water and slaughter them with knives.
Looks pretty wild, but the effect on the population of the minke is almost none.
So, I'm cool with that.

Here is some pictures to illustrate the Faroe way of doing it, DON'T Click on this if you are squeamish (or a vegetarian or something silly like that!)

 

[Merle Nelson]

Read this thread through and it has gone to some interesting places. My wife was a vegetarian when I met her and is now a vegan (eats no animal products). I told here when we were first dating that I am a hunter and I will never stop. This provided for some moral considerations for her as she had a buss. based on support of animal rights and the environment etc. and this is where her passion lies.

I watched a lot of the videos and movies she had access to about whaling, slaughtering Dolphins, and various animal farming practices including numerous forms of intentional cruelty to animals. One of the things I have thought ever sense being exposed to this material is that you don’t have to be hard core anti animal use like PITA, or more middle road just wanting animals to be treaded humanly through the process like my wife tends to pull for. All you would have to do is get these videos consistently in front of the average consumer and meat consumption would drop by a huge amount in my opinion.

Interestingly do you know that it is now illegal to secretly film inside any of these animal production facilities? And that if you stop along the road, parked on public property, and film one of the huge cattle Feed Lot operations (at least in California) you can and frequently will be questioned and arrested? That rather quietly passed into law a couple of years ago along with some anti terror stuff I believe.

More than anything else it scares me that there is fear of what the public will think if they see x on film.

 

[cory]

Stig, you are a vegetarian, right? If so, I'm curious what your reasoning is for it.

 

[stig]

I can't abide the taste of meat.
That includes dead fowl and fish.
Makes me throw up. Always did.

So I'm a bit of an abnormal vegetarian. I even raised calves for about 10 years after I bought my little homestead.
Bought a bunch every spring, fattened them up untill I ran out of hay in late fall early winter, then killed them and sold the meat.

Mainly because my ex-wife was from the city and thought it was great playing rancher. Myself, I've worked on plenty of ranches and dairy operations during my travelling years, so it didn't hold the same allure for me.
Just a lot of work for little money, since the only way to make money raising bull calves here is through the EU subcidies, and being vehemently against the EU, I refused to accept those.

So basically, I'll gladly kill anything that needs killing, including my fellow man, just don't expect me to eat it afterwards.

 

[Thor's Hammer]

'Gladly'? I'll kill anything that needs killing, but not gladly.

 

[Peter]

You could always garrotte a parsnip for yourself.......

 

[cory]

Meat is a hell of a thing.

That seems to sum up a lot of the complexity of this thread.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Nice to see Stig take a break long enough to post!

I suppose that as long as people still think that meat comes from a supermarket my business will be okay. Sorta weird that people will leave the country to the big city and then be upset at the industry that allowed them to move in the first place. Agri-business is just that, business. The three million people that are involved in ag are very good at turning animals, animal products and vast fields of vegetables into quarter pounders and fries. I am not saying there is anything wrong with alternative eating lifestyles, but I would bet that very few people want to grow all of their own food.

The whole organic-free range industry caters to a larger and larger population, but meat is still meat, someone has to drag a knife across an animals throat.

And I am cool with that.

 

[treetx]

Meat is a hell of a thing but so is hunger.

Drag a knife, stab, shoot, whatever.

I don't mind killing. I don't enjoy it, but meat is not free. Meat is so cheap, I think it is good for people to know that it isn't free. Something had to give up its days on the planet to provide it.

I am not hat in hand about my place in the food chain and dragging that knife. However, I do have empathy with all living creatures, for we share the same struggle.

I'm getting hungry

 

[cory]

I do have empathy with all living creatures, for we share the same struggle.

Good way to put it.

 

[stig]

'Gladly'? I'll kill anything that needs killing, but not gladly.

Wrong word to use, sorry.

Can I get away with the "English is not my native language" excuse.

I meant that I didn't mind it much, not that I jumped with joy when I have to kill something.
I'm not a hunter who kills for fun and to prove my manliness ( That one was for you, Chris)

 

[Tucker943]

Hahahaha Stig. Good one. The truth is, while I am a die hard hunter, Im less of a killer then you might think. Im very selective about killing. I come home from hunting empty handed most times, and it wasn't because I didn't see game. Often, I just choose not to kill. Sometimes though, I do. I prove my manliness by beating women and kids, duh.