Whaling - are Japan and Norway at all justified?

Great Debates
1

The short of it are that Japan and Norway are looking to extend their licences, and overturn the declaration of the Indian Ocean whale reserve. They have, in effect, bought out the votes of Russia, China, some Carribean and some West African countries (as per a local environmental programme, 50/50).
The webpage of the IWC is not very helpful as to the actual agenda, but Greenpeace, an admittedly biased group, has some information.
MrsDibble, the green nut and professional environmentalist, has said “clearly, they didn’t learn anything the first two times, we should nuke [japan] again.” I tried to point out that Hisoshima and Nagasaki had nothing to do with whaling, and were atom bombs, not nukes, but still, I tend to agree with her…

What I’d like to debate, though, is this:
Is there any justification for whaling? The TV show said that Japanese gets more protein from the Minke whales they kill for research than any other single source, is this true? If so, how can anyone let the then-obvious lie about “research” go by?

The Japanese say that stocks of some whale species are increasing…does that justify whaling?

My answers, BTW, would be “no” and “no”. What are yours?

2

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I take it she also thinks we should nuke Norway because they whale as well? I guess we should also attempt to wipe out the Native American population again. After all they whale and apparantly they didn’t learn anything after the first time we tried to wipe them out.

I don’t think Japan, Norway, or any other group needs much of a justification for whaling. “We like eating whales” is enough of a justification to me. Whales are just animals and like or not many humans eat animal flesh. I fail to see why whales should be treated as sacred cows and left untouched. So long as they’re not hunting these animals to extinction I’ve got no problems with whaling.

Marc

3

Well Mr.Gibson they are infact hunting these whales to extinction. The Sperm Whale was nearly hunted to extinction in the middle of the 19th century. Minkies and Grey whales are certainly not thriving and the Wright whale is only now in 2002 starting to come back and make more of an appearence.

Fact is they are all threatened, and in jeopardy or becoming extinct. During the 19th century whales were hunted for their oil almost exclusively. Sure some people liked Scrimeshaw and baileen but mainly for their oils. We have electricity now and do not need whale oil lamps. Whale meat is not like swordfish, they don’t harvest it and sell it as a mainstay for a nation.

I come from a very whaling port in New England. My grandfathers grandfather works on a whale boat, he would go out for year at a time, his range was as far as the faulklands and as close as the grand banks. I have some scrimeshaw he handed down through the family.

The point is Whaling should basically be OUT OF STYLE. and why it is still practiced is almost beyond me. I do not see any justification for it, except tradition and habit, Norway and Japan should close their respective whaling ports and utilize the boats for some other purpose.

4

Whoops that should read

I come from a very OLD whaling port in New England

and My grandfathers grandfather WORKED on a whale boat…

NOT WORKS…:slight_smile:
:rolleyes:

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Let’s just remember that this isn’t the 19th century, Mr. Phlosphr.

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Apparantly there’s some disagreement here.

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At what point does a particular whale population make it off the threatened list? Or more specifically how about the Minke?

As very few nations engage in whaling I’m going to have to come to the conclusion that it is basically out of style. As I said I think that “I like the taste” is justification enough for wanting to hunt them. I’m not entirely convinced that the Minke whale population can’t handle a little harvesting now and then.

Marc

6

Yes, she does think we should nuke Norway…but them never having been bombed before, her cute statement won’t scan the same way, now will it?

She doesn’t have a problem with aboriginal hunting (eg Inuit, N.A.), AFAIK, only the commercial whaling of Japan and Norway.

I know my objections are threefold:
Point 1 you address right there at the end - we nearly did hunt whales to extinction, and I don’t hold out much hope for the Japanese showing any more restraint here than they do with their other fishing - eg Patagonian Toothfish in SA coastal waters.
Point 2 is that whales are more intelligent than your average chicken :wink: I, personally, would class them as sentient. I’m not above eating hunted animals - I’ve done so, many times. But I’m not about to eat chimpanzees or gorillas, and whales are right up there with them, IMHO. If this brings up an argument about “where do you draw the line”, I’d like to say upfront that it’s not for me to do…everybody draws their own line…so while I’ll quite happily munch on some Kudu, whale is a bit out-there for me.
Point 3 would have to be a “Hi, Opal!”, wouldn’t it?
Point 4 is that, even if not driven to extinction, the numbers will still be severely depleted (that happens a lot quicker with large mammals than smaller ones - ask the Black Rhino). This will negatively impact on the booming whale-watching industry - a sustainable, non-damaging ecotourism that earns a lot of money in some poorer nations of the world (SA, South Pacific, Baja Mexico…), all so that the Japanes/Norwegian fleets can turn a fast buck. Tragedy of the commons and all that…

7

If this question means what I think this question means my answer is: Bwahahahaa.

On a more serious note:

Take a look at the following pdf file. You will see that the total value for whaling products in 1998 was 711 million yens. Compare this with 77,969 million for inland aquaculture, 139,121 million for seaweed, and 141, 575 million for yellowtail, you get an idea of just how relatively small whalemeat sales are.

An average of 450 minke whales are caught anually by Japanese whalers in the Antarctic. Minke whales average 10 tonnes. Thus minke catches total somewhere around 4500 tonnes.

From this other pdf document, I found out that in 1999, 334,000 tonnes of tuna, 192,000 tonnes of salmon, 483,000 tonnes of anchovy, 40,000 tonnes of crab, 493,000 tonnes of squid, etc. had been caught.

It’s not even close, and I didn’t even look into cattle. My (safe) guess is that despite the mad cow scandal, Yoshinoya’s gyudon beats whale meat by a very large margin.

Now, circa 1945, it is true that whale meat was a major source of protein, but that was out of necessity.

We had a discussion about this last year IIRC.

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Cool, thanks for that, I thought that number might just be…off in terms of veracity.
I’d still say that means that the lie about “research” is just less obvious.
I know this has been debated before, I brought it up now because the IWC is meeting now, and because of those accusations of vote-fixing alleged in both the program, and the Greenpeace website, which I think, if true, are kinda :mad: -ening

9

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What’s the difference? Japan and Norway both have whale hunting traditions just as certain Native American tribes do. What makes it ok for them to hunt and not ok for others? Is it just a matter of scale?

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We’re not living in the 19th century. Just because some species were hunted to near extinction in the past doesn’t mean it will happen today. Especially since whales just aren’t popular to hunt for a variety of reasons.

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Well I can’t say this arguement moves me much. So it is ok for Native American tribes to hunt down sentient creatures?

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So at what point will the Minke whale population be high enough to allow whaling?

Marc

10

Well I would say that some of what you say is valid. This not being the 19th century anymore and yes there are a variety of reasons we don’t hunt as many whales as we used to.
*when I say we I mean us as humans.

As far as the Native populations engaging in whaling…There is a huge difference when it comes to men on a huge iron ship with explosive tip harpoons massacring an entire hurd of minke whales to sell the blubber and meat in a market somewhere as a ‘specialty item’. And an Inuit Tribe killing one whale to support an ENTIRE family for a winter…no monetary value attached to the latter.

11

My opinion is more that Norway and Japan are bristling over being told what to do and how to do it. Not unlike my own beloved country, they probably don’t having others dictate to them, and as a sovereign nation, want to do things their own way. If this is the case, while I strongly disagree with any decision to hunt whales, I applaud the ‘don’t tell us what to do’ sentiment.

12

From an outsider’s perspective, Japan’s actions and arguments in favor of whaling appear to border on the pathological. Last year, I went to a meeting in preparation for an upcoming IWC meeting, a sort of strategy session for the Americans, open to the public, but the details were to be kept secret by attendees until after the meeting. (I was there as a representative of several whaling tribes, the one part of my job which I will leave behind without any regrets.)

Last year, the Japanese were thought to be pursuing two paths which left me agape. That’s where I first learned the details of how the Minke whaling operation is a transparent scam for harvesting. It was expected that Japan would move to increase the scientific gravy-train catch. The second thing the Japanese were expected to do was to pull a parliamentary maneuver in order to get one of their scientific studies placed on the record as fact. The study’s conclusion?

The whale population must be culled… in order to prevent them from eating all the fish.

(I’ve linked directly to the Greenpeace response. If you want to try to support this nonsense, you’re gonna have to find the original study yourself.)

So we’ve got the Japanese, or rather whichever zaibatsu family it is that controls the whaling industry, encouraging bad science on multiple routes in order to prop up the entire industry. Yes, Japanese culture relishes whale meat, but this is not an instance of a culture doomed to failure if they don’t get it. Rather, it’s roughly analogous to someone walking into a restaurant, finding rhinocerous on the menu, and saying, “right on, my favorite!”

The Norwegians deserve another ration of shit because they’re basically in bed with Japan, trying to corner their section of the market once they pry the IWC off of the export ban. To who will the Norwegian-caught whales go? Japan, of course, at an enormous premium.

This is not an issue which I can discuss rationally. I just thought you’d like some of the inside dirt. And now I shall go away.

13

The only thing I remember that makes any kind of sense in Japan, is that there are whole whaling towns and villages that have no other source of revenue. The rural lobby in Japan has a disproportionate amount of votes in parliment. The theory being that Japan continues with “scientific” culling, keeps these towns and parlimentary support alive, and provides whale meat to those that like it.

Ancedotal, I also remember from my days in Japan that most Japanese had never tried whale. I do remember Japanese friends pointing out sushi shops that served whale, because they were pretty rare, and seemed pretty disgusted with the idea.

14

My in-laws told me how when they were kids, whale was a common item on the school lunch menu. And it was revolting. I know of no-one nowadays who buys whale to cook at home.

Much as I love Japan and can see the Japanese side of many arguments, this is one that I can’t. There is no need for the whales to be hunted. Period.

China Guy, I’m not saying that I don’t believe you :wink: but can you give the names of some towns who are totally reliant on whaling? I can’t help feeling that even if they are, there’s nothing stopping them from finding an alternative revenue source. Japanese people are nothing but resourceful.

15

I don’t think whaling nations really need to justify their position to anyone. What I’d like to see is people making valid arguements for not whaling. The only valid arguement I’ve seen so far is that it puts the whales in danger of extinction. Does it in fact put the whales at a great risk of extinction? If current populations are not high enough to handle harvest then what population would it be acceptable to begin harvesting?

The difficult part is I don’t really trust Japan or Norway to be all that objective. On the other hand I don’t really trust the opposition to be all that objective either.

Marc

16

A Japanese ex-girlfriend told me something similar. She said she ate it canned for her school lunches, like tuna, mostly because it was cheap. She took me to a little whale restaurant down some back alley in Tokyo, but it was hard even for her to find a place that served it, which makes me think that it isn’t common today. It wasn’t bad–kind of like fishy beef, or beefy fish.

But I don’t know anything about whale populations, or who to trust for reports. If the whales really are in danger of extinction, that’s an issue, but for me, if there are enough whales, I don’t see why the practice needs any particular justification.

17

When in Japan in '94, my host family gave me whale meat for lunch. (I miss my obento box) It wasn’t common, but it also wasn’t rare and ‘special’ in my host family, Tsubaki. It could be a regional thing ?

When I discovered it was whale, and asked to not be given it again, my host mother was confused. I explained (with much dictionary pointing) that whales were endangered. She’d never heard that idea before and I’m sure she thought I was odd, and had weird ideas.

18

When faced with this debate, I keep on wondering, why whales?

How many people are concerned with the amount of tuna caught annually?

Though whale meat here is certainly not all that hard to find, it’s not a regular item on most fish stands. However, cheap shrimps are. Those usually come from India or the south Pacific. IIRC, quotas and regulations in those countries are a lot less strict than elswhere. The reason the shrimps are so cheap is that they are over-fished. Depletion of the shrimp population will not only have a huge ecological impact but it will also severely affect the economic situation of the people who depend on them to survive. This issue is IMHO a lot bigger than the whaling debate. I really wish so-called environmentalists would devote as much energy defending the cause of non-cute species as they do for whales and such.

19

Okay, I said I would stay out of this, but yours is a reasonable question, MGibson. I’ll make a brief foray into a most basic premise: whale populations.

Whales have an extremely long gestation and calving period. This has been used to the advantage of hunters even in the recent past, but I’m not going to go there. Let’s look instead at some of the whales that have been historically targeted for hunting. Most or all of these species are theoretically protected by IWC convention, but there are loopholes such as that Norway has used to continue whaling in general.

Right Whale

Current population: Approximately 350 adults. Life expectancy for females appears to have dropped from 50 years to fifteen, according to some sources. Short-term outlook is encouraging; long term outlook has the big E written all over 'em. Some claim the name of the whale comes from its desirability; it has a large blubber content and is one of the easier ones to catch, hence it was the “right” whale to find.

Blue Whale

World population is estimated to be somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000, not much more than the size of the North Pacific herd before commercial whaling began, according to that site. Outlook is largely speculative.

Sperm Whale

World population is probably over 100,000, according to this site. These guys are not baleen whales, but appear to be mostly predators. If any critter other than man is going to compete for the fish we eat rather than the krill and other cephalopods we’re going to want after we eat all the fish, these are probably the biggest and most well-known.

(Here is where I as a whale-saver would digress into the origins of the Japanese paradigm that seagoing mammals compete with fishermen, and the grisly results that used to come from such percieved competition. However, modern Japan has evolved to a more modern line of thinking in recent years and now they eat small cetaceans as well.)

Ahhh! I’m sorry, I can’t go on with this, and I’m sure I’m not helping you at this point, MGibson. There ain’t a helluva lot of big whales left. Some species, like the Right, are probably finished for good. Whales have problems just from getting run into by ships and entangled in nets. And they sure do a lot of gabbing with one another for daft sea-cows, which is why I cannot discuss this issue rationally.

Hopefully someone will come in and delineate some less ethically charged reasons for allowing the large whale populations some respite.

20

Sofa King, you forgot to mention the population for Minke whales, more specifically the Southern Pacific population.

I quote from here

One of the pro-whaling arguments you hear is that an increase in Minke population might lead in a decrease in food supply that could lead other species to extintion. Whether you accept this argument or not, you just can’t put Minke whales and Right whales in the same bag.