I haven’t, but that’s a good point. I have considered that they might like the climate more. That’s the same reason I’ve never seen a blue whale, apparently.
So why so much outcry about whales in particular? Seems to me like everyone else in the world (and Americans in particular) thinks complaining about whaling satisfies their quota for “helping to save the planet.” Kind of like supporting hydrogen car research.
Let me toss this into the ring: if Icelanders (and other groups) feel the need to hunt whales to preserve their traditional culture, then they ought to be hunting those whales with culturally traditional boats and weapons. Build the boat traditionally, craft the harpoons traditionally, wear traditional clothes that they sew themselves out of hides that they gnaw with their own teeth. No motors, no electronics, no modern thermal undies, no nothin’. If they can manage to catch a whale that way, without drowning or freezing their collective asses off, then more power to them. Otherwise, they ought to leave the whales alone and revive their culture some other way.
I know there are other arguments for native populations to hunt traditional prey, but if the object is primarily cultural preservation, then give the endangered species a break and play fair.
Cooking and eating is part of traditional culture.
Fegging Icelanders, hunting cute sea mammals. They suck! Hey, get those guys!
[/relieved Canuck]
Come to sunny South Africa in September - there’s a town, hour’s drive from where I type this, where we could sit on the cliffs, maybe with a good single malt, and watch the whales frolic below. Dozens of whales.
As to Iceland (and Japan, Norway & the Inuit and other Aboriginals) - I can’t get any more pissed off than I’ve been since the last IWC meetings, but yeah, fuckem. Fuck Mali and Mongolia too…
By that logic, so is typhus, malaria, and human sacrifice.
The problem is that the IWC is supposed to regulate the hunting of whales at sustainable levels. It isn’t supposed to be a club for mush-brained environmental activists who want to ban all hunting of whales, forever.
There was a book out a few years ago called Cod and it gives a pretty clear picture of how important cod was to the development of human civilization and how important it (and other fish) continues to be to humanity. Apparently humans get a lot of their protein and calories from fish, calories for which there is no ready substitute. I don’t know what the answer is (its not like people can conserve on eating the way you conserve on gas) but once the oceans run out of fish, we gonna have some problems.
So if the pracrtice of whaling is not the “traditional” part of culture, why not farm whales?
What logic is that? Culinary traditions are widely regarded as, well, traditions. If some international organization tried to ban, say, cranberry sauce, I’m sure Americans would object to it on cultural grounds.
In any case, I’m not saying cultrual traditions should automatically be allowed. I’m just saying it’s a valid argument.
It has been proposed, but not yet proven. (And apparently Greenpeace doesn’t like the idea anyway…)
The logic of it being a valid argument breaks down, however, when it involves the extinction of a species. Human sacrifice was once considered a valuable tradition by much of humanity, eventually, however, we realized that it wasn’t such a good idea.
It doesn’t really “break down” - you just have to weigh the arguments for it vs. arguments against it. But Minke whales aren’t on the endangered list now, IIRC.
We still practice human sacrifice. 2800 lives is considered a reasonable sacrifice to bring democracy to Iraq. 40,000 lives per year is considered a reasonable sacrifice for the convenience of using automobiles.
Yeah, well, the jerk store called, and they’re running out of you! 
I got nothing, but I so rarely get to use Seinfeld quotes in conversation these days…
The thing is, the government subsidizes the catch. And nobody WANTS the meat. So it winds up in school lunches. Pure evil.
If whaling sucks, it sucks. Whether or not we are Americans doesn’t matter as much as the choices we make in our lives, IMHO.
As an American, I really take issue with the recent happy crowing about reaching a population of 300 million, what with our consumption of resources. The really sad thing about that consumption is that it’s mostly structural in nature, necessitated by the way our cities are organized and by the economics of business and housing locations, unless you’re lucky enough to live in a place like NYC.
Historically, fishing councils purely dominated by those who want to fish have a pretty poor track record of keeping resource exploitation at sustainable levels. They call it “sustainable,” and then you get what happened to Newfoundland when the cod fishery collapsed, what happened to Monterey when the sardine fishery collapsed, what is happening to the East Coast of the US as the bluefin fishery collapses, what’s happening to Northern California as the salmon fishery collapses… I think you get the idea.
Regardless of your opinion on others’ mush-headedness, the historical record indicates that someone needs to tell those who want to exploit a resource that there are limits.