Seraphim

"Why is it okay to kill and eat plants or fungus? "

My reply : Lesser Evil.

It is easier to cultivate plants using our current technology than killing off creatures which required years to bred to a certain size (such as cows and Whales).

Besides, plant products holds more nutritional values than animal fats ... at least that what I read.

If it OK to kill another animal to fill our stomach, then it is OK also for an animal to kill humans to fill their stomach.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Seraphim ]</p>

MadMordigan

1. No one kills bears or other creatures if it attack, kills and devours humans. Afterall, humans are cheap meat for a hungry bears since humans can't run fast enough.

Counter proposal: Let the bears kill as many humans as they want to, and let the humans kill as many bears as they want to. I'll be happy to call off hostilities when the Commitee for Ursine Integration finishes their negotiation stance.

Seraphim

Nice proposal, should include other creatures as well, including the cat family and other creatures.

May I will take the animal's side and hunt humans as well ... that could be fun

lunachick

The Japanese piss me off with regard to fishing. They completely rape the sea. They creep into our waters at night with drfit nets so fucking big, they cream everything - regardless of whether it is useful as food or not. The monetary value of the edible harvest justifies the means.

Allow them to hunt whales and they will hunt them till extinction, and kill everything else in the process. If they want to eat whale meat, then they should farm them somehow. If they can't farm them - then eat something else.

I wish they wouldn't deplete our fisheries with their rampant theft and use of fucking gi-normous drift nets.

<a href="http://www.forest-bird.org.nz/Marine/fishingmethods/setnets.asp" target="_blank">This site doesn't point to Japan, but Japan is still the biggest user of this method of fishing - albeit illegally</a>

<a href="http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/Envfacts/facts/gill_nets.htm" target="_blank">http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/Envfacts/facts/gill_nets.htm</a>


Bah-humbug!

Seraphim

You may wanna reduce the usage of "F" word ...

Maybe it is time to make law regarding this - whaling and overfishing, or even some safe haven where whales could come and bred, something like a national park but in the sea and protected by man and his technology. About time men get off their fat butt and contribute something to nature.

What disappoint me more is that the fact that Japan is a country which said to follow Buddhism, yet killing helpless creatures doesn't seems to be a bad thing for them.

lunachick

Which one? Fishing, farming, food or fuck? I admit, I'm too liberal with them all.

Apologies.

Sunfair

Feh. What a disgusting thing.

From the article:
and:
So they monitor the population by depleting it? They study migration by interupting it to bag a few? And those feeding habits they research- does that include exchanging recipes? What kind of scientific research is that!??

*ahem* Some more practical questions- how many boats are we talking about in this research fleet? How long are they out? When the whale meat is sold who gets the money? What kind of research are they doing on these dead whales? Is this a common practice among whale researchers? Do they consider an autopsy on an otherwise healthy animal whom they have themselves killed to be a legitimate way to research the species?

It sounds fishy to me...

I saw a National Geographic show this last week that showed some starving whales. Apparently the warmer seas are affecting their usual food supply and they're having a rough time of it.

I can't remember what kind of whales they were- humpbacks perhaps- but the scientists had to call off their migration watch early because there just weren't enough whales going by to justify staying. (I believe they were in Baja California.) The numbers had dropped from 500+ to less than a hundred.

Does anybody know of what the actual numbers are of the populations of different types of whales? Just how bad off are they? And how much of a gene pool do they need to maintain in order to avoid becoming inbred?

Stephen T-B

We have seen evidence gathered by TV investigators that the Japanese are killing whales commercially, and because that’s banned, they say it is being done for “scientific research.”
Anyone taken in by that will be taken in by anything.
In terms of whether killing whales is wrong, I think you should consider how they are killed.
The slaughter of farm animals is subject (in the UK - I don’t know about the US) to strict humanitarian rules, so in theory, a cow’s death is rapid and painless.
Is a whale’s death rapid and painless?
We are talking here about a very large animal indeed, probably with rather higher intelligence than that of a cow which I suggest means that it’s awareness of what’s going on is that much greater. Should we therefore take greater care when killing it?
My own view is that commercial whaling is unnecessary and loathsome.
It is unnecessary to the extent that the Japanese (and Norwegians) would not be at risk from starvation if their supply of whale meat were cut off. It is loathsome to the extent that killing a whale is a cruel and long-drawn out process.

ksagnostic

Hell no. For the following reasons...

1) The Japanese government has been arguing for lifting the ban on whaling for "research purposes" for decades. It was bogus then, and with modern techonology it is certainly bogus now. There is NO reason why whaling would be necessary to monitor population and migration routes.

2) As lunachick pointed out, the Japanese already push the envelope on fishing. No reason to suppose they will restrain themselves on this issue. The resources of the ocean are truly international.

3) The claim that Sperm Whale populations have recovered is bogus. Sperm Whales are long lived, slow reproducing animals. Population recovery isn't just numbers, it's generations. Last I read, there is a dearth of mature adult Sperm Whales. I suspect that the Minke situation is similar (I knew at one time it was, with whale catches coming in younger and younger).

4) Doubting, I truly doubt I'd be impressed with your "rat news". The differences between rats, which reproduce rapidly, do not live in organized social groups (at least naturally), live short lives (which is why rats and mice make good biomedical research subjects). Whales, on the other hand, are not only large brained, they live in complex social groups (well, male sperm whales don't after they reach maturity), they take a long time to reach maturity, and they depend on older members of their family and social group to learn how to function. So, the intelligence of whales not only matters from a similarity/awareness issue, it is a species survival issue.

5) The differences between whales and cattle, therefore, include the following: Whales have longer developmental periods, they reproduce slowly, they live in wild populations that are dependent on themselves for reproduction, they live and move through international waters, and are therefore international resources, they live in wild populations where intelligence, and more to the point, life experience, are probably as important as such issues as genetic diversity. Cattle are domesticated animals which owe there very existence to the humans that breed them, in spite of being large animals that usually have no more than one or two offspring per birth, they reach reproductive maturity relatively rapidly.

The objections to whaling do include those motivated by concerns for the actual animals and sentient beings. However, objections to whaling also include the arguments that whales are fragile because of their slow replacement rate and intergenerational dependence, and they are international resources and keystone species (Minkes because of the plankton they consume, and Sperm Whales because they are top predators) whose health as species help the evaluation of the health of the oceans. Plus, the reasons given by the Japanese government on why they want to resume whaling can not be reasonably construed as honest.

Vesica

While I do not have first hand experience of seeing Japanese methods for whale hunting/killing, I think the publically available footage of Japanese fishing methods for other species could be part of the reason for the outcry. This is the country that routinely cuts the fins off sharks and then throws them back into the sea to drown. Not only is this a rather torturous way to kill an animal, it seems a little wasteful to me.

I also don't think the fact Japan has ignored international agreements in the past really helps. If they are, in essence, whaling now why does the world need to sanction something they have been doing illegally.

As for the general outcry about killing sea mammals, most of the complaints I have seen relate to specific practices of killing animals rather than using other available technologies to protect fish harvests or killing them in particularly brutal ways. The video of men beating a dolphin to death pops to mind. I think that kind of behavior would disturb me if it was any animal from a rat to a cow. We have more humane ways to end an animal's than pummeling it to death.