Commercial whaling: For/Against/Indifferent?

[coombz]

Did I stutter?

[GScholz]

You don't find the idea just a little bit psychotic?

[coombz]

what's psychotic about it, I thought hunting and killing animals is a fun hobby?  

if you want to differentiate between a poor dumb animal with four legs versus a poor dumb animal with two that is your prerogative sir

[gyrene81]

You want to dismember and kill hunters?

what "hunters"? all i see are floating factories with one purpose...decimate the population of whatever species gets in their way. and those countries who do so without regard of the consequences to the rest of the planet deserve to be treated in the same manner...

[GScholz]

"Decimate the population of whatever species gets in their way". Like I said, we've been doing this for 1,200 years now, and we haven't "decimated" any of the species we harvest. We even got a navy out there protecting them from other, less rational, fishing fleets.

[caldera]

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

  

[gyrene81]

sorry but, the last 100 years of rampant commercial fishing and whaling did more damage to the populations of many fish and whale, than the previous 1100 years...what your country is doing now is just prolonging the inevitable where the whales are concerned. do some research, see how many of each sex and their ages get harvested each year, then do the math and see for yourself how sustainable the limited population is when the females only bare young once every 2 years.

[GScholz]

500,000 minke whale. Approx. 250,000 of them female, produce 125,000 offspring every year on average if they all get pregnant every two years. We harvest about 1,200 a year. The minke whale population is increasing, not declining, and it has been steadily increasing for at least one hundred years since we started counting them in 1904.

[GScholz]

I don't think you appreciate how enormous a population of 500,000 is for a single species of whale. For a 6-9 ton predatory animal, it is a huge population. By comparison there are about 20,000 lions in the world, and 3,500 great white sharks.

[gyrene81]

I don't think you appreciate how enormous a population of 500,000 is for a single species of whale. For a 6-9 ton predatory animal, it is a huge population. By comparison there are about 20,000 lions in the world, and 3,500 great white sharks.

if it was 1mil plus i wouldn't object quite so much, especially considering the efforts your government makes. however, there is still one provision that cannot be argued, those whales are not a necessary food source.

[mbailey]

Just out of curiosity, what is a "necessary food source" 

[GScholz]

Not a necessary food source... In a world where 15 million children die of hunger each year (41,000 per day), I would argue that there is no such thing as "not a necessary food source". When we eat whale, we eat less of something else.

[gyrene81]

Just out of curiosity, what is a "necessary food source" 

i'll try to make this as clear as possible...necessary as in required to sustain the population. in the case of the minke whales and the country of Norway, there is an abundance of other sources of meat that are far more sustainable because they breed faster. there is no need to harvest whales for food. at least they aren't like some other countries where everything that isn't commercially profitable gets dumped.

Not a necessary food source... In a world where 15 million children die of hunger each year (41,000 per day), I would argue that there is no such thing as "not a necessary food source". When we eat whale, we eat less of something else.

any of those starving children live in your country and rely on the whale meat to survive?

[GScholz]

As I said: The more whale we eat the less we eat of other food sources. Btw. why should we eat one species (say cow) over another (say whale) ?

[gyrene81]

you have more choices than just cow...a lot more. and you didn't say how many starving children in your country are the recipients of the abundance of whale meat harvested annually...