Japan Hunts Humpback Whales.

[Smithy]

Ha ha! Smithy, I should have realised that being originally from NZ you'd get my skewed Aussie version of humour! Mate, I would love to get myself over there one day! And we're definitely on for a drink or three next time you're in port.

Benny, I'll have to make sure I'm back in Sydney when you guys are playing next, that sounds even better mate Jeez it's probably changed a lot since I lived there in the late 90s (even more Kiwis have invaded the place now )

But you make it up here buddy and we'll take you out into the snow to see some elk!

 

[dr greg]

Od Tom's bones

I have been reading up on whale species. Really fascinating.

Their intelligence is astonishing - but get this: Orcas (not a whale species) used to help on whaling expeditions. They would signal to shore with their flukes to alert the whalers of the presence of a whale species they knew was hunted. They helped to corral and kill the hunted whale, and then assisted by pulling the tow ropes! Surviving skeletons show the extreme wear on their teeth of the slipping ropes.

That's well-known over here, there's even a museum dedicated to the strange symbiotic relationship that existed.
http://www.killerwhalemuseum.com.au/oldtom.html

 

[HungaryTom]

Let's look at another endangered species. The wolf. Today, there's around 100 000 - 200 000 in the entire world.

Camille, absolutely right and valid point: imagine there were 100 000 - 200 000 humans left on the entire world and some species hunted us for our sashimi or skins...just as a comparison: even during the hunter-gatherer-flintstone period of humans the global population had a few million worldwide, at least this is what demography is talking about

It may sound much, but looking at just Scandinavia (Norway/Sweden) we have around 150-200 left. In Sweden, the government had bullet-money on each wolf killed up until 1965, making the -last- wolf disappear from Sweden in the 80's. (They'd been a protected species since 1966, but with poachers around, we didn't have a single wolf in the entire country) Nowadays, the entire scandinavian wolf-populace is threatened of diseases due to inbreeding as they all (most likely) stem from the same three wolves in the 70's. And reindeer-farmers won't let any new wolves across the borders because they're afraid they're gonna kill their reindeers. Proportions, anybody?

In Hungary wolf and the golden jackal (called the 'reeds wolf') were exterminated in the 20th century as permanent species, now wolves come back from Slovakia and we have a breeding population in NE Hungary and stray wolves coming in from Yugoslavia and Romania. The Golden Jackal has also returned, but it is also the result of the Balkan wars (they were not hunted that intensively) and the global warming. In the entire Carpathian Basin the wolves might survive but they are quite marginalized and peasants are also extremely worried when one of their sheep is taken

Same thing goes for japanese whale-hunting. I don't think they care enough of the survivability of the species to take care of it in a nice, smooth way. Which the norwegians obviously do, or there would be no more whales around the coasts of norway.

Whaling...Since the entire biosphere is diminishing due to global warming and pollution the seas suffer from gross overfishing, dumping every of our garbage in the seas (radioactive, heavy metals) whales might be more endangered than people might think...Because I am quite sure that the entire thing is different than it was in the 18-19th century, stopping the hunt was enough for whales to recover then. The biosphere as such was not menaced until the 1950s but now simply stopping the hunt is not enough.

If you consider that the food chain (krill and the plankton) is also undercut from them plus whales are poisoned with carcinogenic, terratogenic stuff or they might become infertile, the pressure (stress if you like) might be quite too high and species might collapse. 40,000 is not too much if you see the space between Alaska and Hawaii...

What if the North polar sea is changing its character in 30-50 years and becomes ice free in the summer? Once the ice is gone there the oil wealth will be exploited there...Similar things might happen at the Antarctica sooner or later, the melting of ice points in the direction of ice free or at least more easily exploitable conditions. Can anybody model its impacts to the whales foodsource - the krill? What if the entire food chain is impacted? How much will it be impacted? Ice free poles: it never happened since a few millions years ago when there was no whaling and species could adapt easily.

Whales are simply too big to be saved and re-bred in captivity like the Przewalski horse, Mi-lu deer, Siberian Tigers, California Condor, etc. So if humans (all of us 7 billion are) are screwing up the maritime ecosphere plus some guys (Japanese, Norwegians, whoever) go and take extra whales there is no second chance to save them. And there is no difference between nations, since -even the landlocked ones- dump things in the sea most rivers arrive namely there.

Scotrace, sorry for the wrong choice of wording at my rant.
(Bartender note: please be careful of your language.)

 

[Lincsong]

 

[deanglen]

"What do you do when you see a whale, men?!"



dean

 

[scotrace]

The wolf populations in the Carpathians would probably be fine if that meddlesome Van Helsing had minded his own addle-brained business.

 

[Woland]

Whaling...Since the entire biosphere is diminishing due to global warming and pollution the seas suffer from gross overfishing, dumping every of our garbage in the seas (radioactive, heavy metals) whales might be more endangered than people might think...Because I am damn sure that the entire thing is different than it was in the 18-19th century, stopping the hunt was enough for whales to recover then. The biosphere as such was not menaced until the 1950s but now simply stopping the hunt is not enough.

If you consider that the food chain (krill and the plankton) is also undercut from them plus whales are poisoned with carcinogenic, terratogenic stuff or they might become infertile, the pressure (stress if you like) might be quite too high and species might collapse. 40,000 is not too much if you see the space between Alaska and Hawaii...

What if the North polar sea is changing its character in 30-50 years and becomes ice free in the summer? Once the ice is gone there the oil wealth will be exploited there...Similar things might happen at the Antarctica sooner or later, the melting of ice points in the direction of ice free or at least more easily exploitable conditions. Can anybody model its impacts to the whales foodsource - the krill? What if the entire foodchain is impacted? How much will it be impacted? Ice free poles: it never happened since a few millions years ago when there was no whaling and species could adapt easily.

Finally someone addressing a very real threat...
Attacking Norway or Japan for hunting down a few whales, instead of addressing the REAL problem (upcoming environmental catastrophe), is so utterly human and so utterly simple.

What drove many species of whale into near extinction was human greed combined with industrialization.

Human greed and industrialization are still our main problem and we refuse to take our capability to destroy ANY ecosphere seriously.
Self-destruction seems to be our ultimate goal.

In order to sweeten the bitter pill, we make sentimental choices.
Cute & "magnificent" animals (far away from our own enviroment) are being given a near messianic status.
Local livestock are experiencing a short and painful captive life & death in utter degradation.

We have distanced ourselves from "The Kill".
Edible meats mysteriously appears in the shops, all wrapped up in cellophane with a pink ribbon round it.

Thanksgiving anyone?

Fried Chicken?

A nice steak?

A healthy fish dinner?

Just a couple of examples...

I try to restrict my intake of meat to WILD ANIMALS ONLY.
Why?

A: Because they have in fact had a life.
B: Healthier animals makes for healthier food.

If one were to criticize Norway for environmental offenses, the subject should in fact be:

The Norwegian government prides itself on being environment-friendly, and is quick to criticize other nations for their sins.
Yet; we are one of the worlds largest exporters of Global Environmental Problem NR. 1:
Fossile Fuel!


Norway is getting filthy rich in fact...



I will continue to eat my venison, marine or land based.
Preferably killed by my own hands.

The Noble Sea-Sheperd; "Captain" Paul Watson, will continue to make a solid buck on people who needs to feel they are actually making a difference.

Governments will still offer industries the right to keep on polluting, as long as they are prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege.

Oil-companies will still sabotage any serious attempt to realize alternative sources of energy.

End of rant!
Think Ill order for some sashimi...

 

[HungaryTom]

Woland,

I am happy that we agree that the basic problem lies not in the division of good Norwegian whalers and evil-evil Japanese whalers.

Some industrial revolution should come, but this time the goal should be the minimizing the environmental impact - one should internalize the environmental value of developments into the making of economical calculus.

Whether the process of warming and the melting of polar ice -cold seas with plenty of plankton and krill are the whales favourite habitat- is still revertible I don't know. The biosphere seems to show clear signs of exhaustion - Gaia is overworked in trying to clean up our rubbish.

Once more again the Golden Era is not only golden to me since the clothing fashion was nice - environmental problems of this magnitude were not existent, the existing problems were local and could be prevented. The species which got extinct until that Era, were directly hunted down (e.g.Aurox, Barbary lion etc.) or were living in very small sized habitats (Dodo&co.). The amount of humans was still within the border of global carrying capacity (2 billion in 1920s and 2,5 bn in the 1950s) and the pressure generated by their consumption levels also.

What is alarming now that nations have exceeded the sustainable levels either by overconsumption or overpopulation or both and as a consequence species like whales or cod with HUGE areas are also vanishing and that species die out 'unintentionally' like the golden toad which nobody hunted directly or poached on safaries and the other gazillions whithout names.

Regards:

Tom

 

[Smithy]

I agree as well, there's far more things which are seriously affecting the environment and the sea currently.

However I wouldn't get too, too excited about the halcyon days of the "Golden Era", many of the attitudes of unsustainability and not caring two hoots about the environment grew dramatically out of this age. Have a look at the number of species which were hunted to extinction, or close to it, during the Golden Age for sport or because they were considered pests.

Not having a go at you Tom, but I think we can't let unfounded nostalgia cloud our views.

 

[HungaryTom]

I think we can't let unfounded nostalgia cloud our views.

Very true.

 

[Lincsong]

:eusa_doh: