Gyrene, again you seem to ignore the fact that the minke whale population is increasing; and to such a level we may cull them to keep the population more healthy (better meat). You also ignore the fact that we have been successfully shepherding this resource for more than a thousand years.
i hate to tell you this but, "culling" does not make the population "more healthy" or make better meat. if it did, the thousand years your people have supposedly spent "shepherding" the whales would not have resulted in the 3 year ban on whale hunting.
During the 1990's they set the quotas very low and for three years they outright banned whaling in Norway due to an unknown negative development in the minke whale population (possibly disease). This led to economic hardship for the whaling fleet, but that is irrelevant to the science and conservation of this resource.
after a thousand years, a genetically stronger stock should exist now and would not have suffered a collapse due to an "unknown negative development". one would think that after a thousand years someone would have come up with better methods to not only insure the survival of the species but figure out a ways to increase the numbers so that discussions like this wouldn't even exist. fact is limiting the seasonal catch is the only thing the country has done, just like many other countries. nothing special...
As for the deer, again you seem to advocate some sort of equal rights for animals. Animals don't have property rights; they live on land that we own. There isn't a square foot of land on Earth that isn't owned by humans, and if the animals want it they will have to fight for it. In fact the deer are themselves our property to do with as we please. The only right animals have is to be killed with minimal suffering, within reason; and that is more etiquette than law in most countries.
lol, i see the neanderthal mentality isn't just an american thing. if animals don't have rights to exist where they did millenia before the encroachment of humans, what gives the human animal rights? what, because we're the ones making up the rules, we get to dictate what has rights and what doesn't? you are a single specimen of a highly destructive invasive species, just as susceptible to being displaced as any other species walking the planet, a temporary resident with a shorter lifespan than some reptiles. humans don't own any more of the planet than a colony of ants. in fact, using the human idea of possession equals ownership, ants own more of the planet than humans. the only right humans have, is the same right that applies to every other species, the right to live and die. in order to do that, we need to make sure we take the time to ensure the survival of other species that we depend on for our survival and in sufficient numbers to feed our growing populations. can't do that by industrial farming (it creates a genetic cesspool that is more susceptible to disease and defect than other methods), or destroying habitat to the point where the animals have to invade our alternate food sources in order to survive. killing animals because they are getting in the way of progress is a self defeating practice. in the case of culling herds of white tail deer, wouldn't it make more sense to relocate the animals from more highly populated regions to places that are less populated and perhaps spread the genetic pool out a little? conservationists do it to alligators, and fewer people rely on them for sport and food than white tailed deer.
