Commercial whaling: For/Against/Indifferent?

[GScholz]

From the media and Discovery programs like "Whale Wars", depicting Paul Watson and his inept crew of vegans, I get the impression that many Americans are against commercial whaling. Is this a fact, or just skewed media influence?

Are you guys for, against or indifferent to whale hunting for food?

[edog1977]

I'm for it. Except for Humpbacks. We may need them to talk to an alien space ship someday.

[gyrene81]

people still eat whales? it's the 21st century and i have yet to see a package of whale meat in the grocery store...

i don't see any use for whale hunting...unless the weapon of choice is a camera. it's like hunting rhino and elephant, a lot of money spent wasting time and bullets. amazing that so many humans spend their lives trying to stay in touch with their stoneage mentality...

[danny76]

^^^^^ This.
Just another outdated tradition that needs to be forgotten. I understand the reasoning. I mean, What could be more fun than standing in the sea and hacking defenswlwss animals to death with a knife on a stick?

[Nypsy]

people still eat whales? it's the 21st century and i have yet to see a package of whale meat in the grocery store...

i don't see any use for whale hunting...unless the weapon of choice is a camera. it's like hunting rhino and elephant, a lot of money spent wasting time and bullets. amazing that so many humans spend their lives trying to stay in touch with their stoneage mentality...

^^^
I agree.

[GScholz]

Commercial whaling is a bit different than that Danny. Today we use cannon with explosive shells that kill the animal instantly. It is then winched aboard a factory ship which turns it into food that is sold in the supermarket alongside beef products from other animals. It is a regulated industry were the number of whales that can be harvested is determined by state employed scientists.

[gyrene81]

Commercial whaling is a bit different than that Danny. Today we use cannon with explosive shells that kill the animal instantly. It is then winched aboard a factory ship which turns it into food that is sold in the supermarket alongside beef products from other animals. It is a regulated industry were the number of whales that can be harvested is determined by state employed scientists.

(Image removed from quote.)

lol, i can't resist...what "other animal" can you get beef from?

i have never had the opportunity to eat whale meat, which is a bit odd for me considering the large variety of odd things i have eaten. i can however say that i have absolutely zero inclination to do so. i'm not starving, and if i was, there is a lot of other stuff that i could acquire much easier than a whale. the days of whales being a necessary commodity are long gone. hell, with the exception of a small number of indigenous people in various regions of the planet who relied on whales as a food source, they have never been a necessary commodity in so called civilized nations.

[GScholz]

Well, we call it whale beef, ox/cow beef, elk beef, deer beef. Maybe you guys just call it meat. In my country whale meat is available in just about any grocery store and usually cheaper than meat from cows. Gyrene, I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean by "a necessary commodity in so called civilized nations"? Are you promoting veganism? If not, then how can anyone justify killing one animal for food, but not another? Whales are just big sea-cows after all.

[Dragon]

If the whale is used for all it's worth, fat rendered for fuel, meat for for food, etc. I have no problem with it.  Hunting rhino and elephant for ivory or sex toys only bothers me.  

[GScholz]

By law the entire animal must be used for something. We don't use the blubber locally, so it is exported to Japan where they use it in food production.

[Triton28]

I think the majority of average Americans are probably against it, simply because whale meat isn't popular and it's been demonized pretty thoroughly in the media.

Personally, like was said above, as long as the animal is used, I have zero issue with it.  Conservation of the species is the only limiting factor, imo.  Being the most sophisticated species on the planet doesn't mean we shouldn't use resources for our own good, but it does mean we should be smart enough to not decimate the resource itself.   

[gyrene81]

Well, we call it whale beef, ox/cow beef, elk beef, deer beef. Maybe you guys just call it meat. In my country whale meat is available in just about any grocery store and usually cheaper than meat from cows. Gyrene, I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean by "a necessary commodity in so called civilized nations"? Are you promoting veganism? If not, then how can anyone justify killing one animal for food, but not another? Whales are just big sea-cows after all.

what i mean by "necessary commodity in so called civilized nations" is that in civilized nations, the people are supposedly educated enough to learn how to create sustainable food sources. there are sources of food that are sustainable (not talking just vegetation either, vegans are irritating), and whales are not one of those sources. there are places on the planet where people do rely on the sea for food and whales are part of their diet but not on the scale of having floating processing plants harvesting them for sale at retail markets. the big difference between sheep, pigs, goats or cows is, whales aren't bred and raised as a source of food. if someone started raising whale herds the same way people raise domestic livestock, or perhaps so much as aquatic farmers are raising some species of fish, then i wouldn't object to farm raised whales being used as food.

[GScholz]

Norway only hunts minke whale; a species which is abundant in our seas. There are an estimated half-a-million of them, and this year's quota is for a total of 1286 animals. We shepherd this resource responsibly, just like we do with our fisheries. "Civilized" nations still fish don't they?

[gyrene81]

Norway only hunts minke whale; a species which is abundant in our seas. There are an estimated half-a-million of them, and this year's quota is for a total of 1286 animals. We shepherd this resource responsibly, just like we do with our fisheries. "Civilized" nations still fish don't they?

so you think it's "responsible" to annually kill nearly 1300 specimens of a species that has a limited population in which the females only produce 1 offspring every 2 years? the number of sheep in Norway is abundant, 500,000 whales is not an "abundant" population. and what those whaling ships do is not "hunting", they are floating processing plants.

these people hunt whales...but they don't package the meat for sale in the store, everyone gets some.

[edog1977]

While I find this discussion interesting I can't help but wonder about the whalers Danny mentioned in his post. He says they are "standing in the sea." Who do they think they are, Jesus?