Question Whale Hunting?

[rynnor]

I was brought up in the time when it was universally perceived as evil but I'm beginning to wonder if thats true?

On the face of it killing and eating mammals that live in the sea is no worse than eating beef or pork?

I understand that the oldtime commercial whaling went too far on some species but presumably that could be managed.

Its interesting to note that some species were never under threat.

The Minke whale is a good case in point - never greatly hunted but people are now concerned because they directly compete with fishermen for fish such as Cod which already have depleted stocks.

It seems a bit odd to give fishermen quotas on Cod but leave the whales un-controlled.

I wonder if people could ever perceive whale hunting as good for nature...

What do you guys think of it?

 

[tris-]

imo its for the same reasons that we dont hunt elephants and tigers (legally that is).

keep killing the fuckers and there wont be any left.

 

[ECA]

It's pretty unfair, I don't think Anne Widdecombe should be made to run at her age. Unless you give her an electric wheelchair with a high powered gokart engine.

 

[rynnor]

imo its for the same reasons that we dont hunt elephants and tigers (legally that is).

keep killing the fuckers and there wont be any left.

Hmm - but they do legally hunt Elephants in Africa - partly to control numbers?

 

[tris-]

if you can kill some and not threaten the species then there isnt a major problem from my view. even better if they can use the left overs for something useful.

 

[mycenae]

Minke whales are still hunted...but only by eskimos and people that actually use the whale meat and blubber to survive, and the numbers are quite strictly controlled. I have no issue with culling of any species, but unlike tigers or elephants, which are quite distinguishable from other animals, its quite hard to tell a Minke from certain other species. Therein lies a problem as another, more endangered species may inadvertantly be killed.

 

[TdC]

aye, Rynnor, but a controlled cull is not the same as a hunt for sport or nutrients.

 

[Scouse]

One of the reasons we stopped hunting wales is because westerners believe that they're quite intelligent.

Has that situation changed recently? All whales are retards now?

 

[nath]

Pigs are very intelligent indeed, people don't tend to have a problem eating them.

Still, it's their own fault for being so fucking tasty.

 

[TdC]

heh indeed Nath last time I saw a documentary, I gathered that pigs were on a par with dogs to say the least.

 

[nath]

Up with gorillas when I saw one. Give them a snout joystick and the promise of M&Ms and they're fucking geniuses.

 

[TdC]

hell yeah, I know I would be given the same incentives.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Kill all the feckers for all i care.

If the tiger could wipe out all the humans and get a months free munchies, it would.

The dinosaurs didn't think twice about "should i kill this almost extinct species?". Hell, didn't think once! (*waits for some smartarse to say "But nature controlled how much they eat etc etc"*)

The sooner people realize that from the amoeba level to us humans, this planet is kill or be killed, brutal, f*cked up beyond all belief hellhole and we can't save everyone...the better.

 

[DaGaffer]

Kill all the feckers for all i care.

If the tiger could wipe out all the humans and get a months free munchies, it would.

The dinosaurs didn't think twice about "should i kill this almost extinct species?". Hell, didn't think once! (*waits for some smartarse to say "But nature controlled how much they eat etc etc"*)

The sooner people realize that from the amoeba level to us humans, this planet is kill or be killed, brutal, f*cked up beyond all belief hellhole and we can't save everyone...the better.

Start wiping out whole foodchains and we put ourselves at risk.

Besides, as a species we can make decisions based on issues other than Darwinistic ones. Whales are worth keeping purely for their aesthetic value (and I find the idea that they need to be culled to protect Cod stocks laughable tbh; fishermen make the same argument about seals too, with a straight face. Utter crap).

 

[old.Tohtori]

Start wiping out whole foodchains and we put ourselves at risk.

This i agree with, to some degree. If someone shows that killing X is harmful to humans in the grand scale, then do use some level of restriction.

Though i also believe that animals shouldn't be killed just for fun, if it's for use, it's ok.

So if killing whales feeds people, go for it with as much "blessing" as killing cows, fishing, or ripping innocent carrots out of the ground.

 

[Trem]

Cows are bred to be food, whales are not.

Its pretty easy to get a shit load of cows, kill them all then replenish the livestock. Not so easy with whales.

Leave them be I say.

 

[TdC]

this planet is kill or be killed, brutal, f*cked up beyond all belief hellhole and we can't save everyone

true, however we can choose to try. just like we choose to create sustainable forestry and have protected national parks and stuff. like DaGaffer says, humans choose to not operate on a Darwinistic level because our brains grant us the ability to think ahead.

tbh I am all for something becoming extinct naturally. That is what evolution does. However I do not believe that humans influence the natural cycle in a natural way. If lions could do what humans do, like you say, there would be no life on this planet, but a lion wouldn't be able to do it without a brain similar to a human and in that case they wouldn't. Just like us, the hyper-lion would realise that they would have a bit of a problem when all the food was gone, just like us the hyper-lion would learn the value of sustaining other species.

 

[old.Tohtori]

tbh I am all for something becoming extinct naturally. That is what evolution does. However I do not believe that humans influence the natural cycle in a natural way. If lions could do what humans do, like you say, there would be no life on this planet, but a lion wouldn't be able to do it without a brain similar to a human and in that case they wouldn't. Just like us, the hyper-lion would realise that they would have a bit of a problem when all the food was gone, just like us the hyper-lion would learn the value of sustaining other species.

that brings us ofcourse, naturally, to a question;

Does nature end when science begins, or does nature include technologically evolved species?

In essence; is our own grasp, of what is natural cycle, un-evolved?

I know what you're saying(and others), and if we can avoid extinction, fair play. But i also think alot of the "save x species" are a bit of a mountain-molehill issue. It's not like whalers want the whales to go extinct.

Also i feel that humans should sometimes learn to let things die.

 

[DaGaffer]

Also i feel that humans should sometimes learn to let things die.

Don't disagree with that at all; the whole thing about the Pandas in the press the other week was spot on; they have evolved into an ecological cul-de-sac; one bad bamboo blight would wipe them out anyway. But the flipside is that we're not just letting things die; in places like the Amazon we're wiping out species (daily) that we haven't even got around to cataloguing yet, just so we can get cheaper burgers. And while humans could probably continue to survive in a world where the only animals we tolerate are in farms or wildlife parks, do we want to live in that world?

I've just got back from a week in Jordan, and when I went diving I was shocked at how much of the coral was dead and how sparse the life was; this is an area that only 20 years ago was one of the richest underwater ecologies in the world, and the damage is pretty much entirely man-made.

 

[old.Tohtori]

And while humans could probably continue to survive in a world where the only animals we tolerate are in farms or wildlife parks, do we want to live in that world?

Only real way to find out would be a global vote, will be a historic day when THAT works.

Wouldn't be a bad idea in itself, remove all nations and start acting as a planet.

Maybe when our alien overlords come.

In any case, yes, people do have a silly notion of destroying countless species in one go, then cry a river when a fuzzy panda is about to die naturally. That's why i think that the darwin thinking should include science and advanced species as it's evolution and effects nature.

 

[Calaen]

You could not vote on it anyway even with the whole world, why would you allow someone who has never left his bedroom have a say in a species that other people enjoy watching?

You wouldn't!!

Also I am confused in your first post you said kill everything you don't care and then your next post said it was ok to kill but only if it had a use? so just for clarification what is your actual stance

Oops forgot my own opinion! I agree with Trem, killing things that are bred purely for breeding is nothing like killing another animal just for the sake of it. As dagaffer also highlighted humans are already destroying things without really even trying.

 

[old.Tohtori]

You could not vote on it anyway even with the whole world, why would you allow someone who has never left his bedroom have a say in a species that other people enjoy watching?

You wouldn't!!

Also I am confused in your first post you said kill everything you don't care and then your next post said it was ok to kill but only if it had a use? so just for clarification what is your actual stance

Well, voting never works like that. People who don't know anything about issues still get a vote. Same would work globally.

If 1 out of 10 people wants to see a fuzzy panda live, and 9 out of 10 wants it on the grill, majority rules.

Yes i said "for all i care", as i don't really care if people do or don't kill animals, meaning that i won't lose sleep over it and my world won't be any different if there are no more pandas, but my personal choice would be to kill animals for use only.

My personal choice over the way the world works is ofcourse a null point

Kinda like; i would love to f*ck milla jovovich silly, but if i can't, i don't really care.

 

[nath]

You could not vote on it anyway even with the whole world, why would you allow someone who has never left his bedroom have a say in a species that other people enjoy watching?

Winston said it well.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter.

 

[rynnor]

Its interesting to see the social programming at work here - as I said theres no moral difference between killing a cow and killing a whale - the fact that whales get to exist in the wild makes no measurable difference - think of them as 'free range'

People are terribly hypocritical when you look at the attitudes of society as a whole - the reason everyone is against whale hunting is the masterfull brainwashing campaigns waged by greenpeace.

Kudo's to them but its a little depressing to see how easy it is to imprint a view on society as a whole...

 

[Trem]

And while humans could probably continue to survive in a world where the only animals we tolerate are in farms or wildlife parks, do we want to live in that world?

Absolutely not, whales give me goosebumps, that show earlier this year about them was simply amazing.

I love eagles, bee's, hawks, lions, tigers, spiders, elephants and pretty much every other living thing that has a purpose. If only to please me is the aforementioned animals purpose then so be it.

Does human intelligence give us a god given right to think nothing else belongs on this planet apart from us?

What we should concentrate our efforts on getting rid of is pointless things like ticks and wasps, what the fuck are they good for?

Stupid wasps

This is our world not mine.

 

[tris-]

Kudo's to them but its a little depressing to see how easy it is to imprint a view on society as a whole...

you also need to consider that not everyones views are informed by other peoples opinnions.
i dont read their literature, following their activities or give 2 shits about them.

to me it simply makes sense not to kill a species untill its wiped out.

 

[DaGaffer]

Its interesting to see the social programming at work here - as I said theres no moral difference between killing a cow and killing a whale - the fact that whales get to exist in the wild makes no measurable difference - think of them as 'free range'

People are terribly hypocritical when you look at the attitudes of society as a whole - the reason everyone is against whale hunting is the masterfull brainwashing campaigns waged by greenpeace.

Kudo's to them but its a little depressing to see how easy it is to imprint a view on society as a whole...

If its hypocritical, so be it, but I don't think its necessarily social programming; I'm not a fan of Greenpeace at all, I just prefer my wildlife to be actually wild rather than domesticated, and think it takes rather longer to make a whale than a cow. And I don't necessarily think whales should always and forever be exempt from culling (I have no objection to elephant culls for example, having seen their ability to destroy their environment as effectively as any logging firm), but I just don't believe whales are a threat to fishing on anything like the scale that mankind is, and killing them for meat is ridiculously inefficient.

 

[TdC]

Stupid wasps

trem, you are my hero. I fucking hate wasps, pardon my french. if a pixie granted me a wish right now I would pass over a threesome with Aria Giovanni and Laetitia Casta to wish all wasps into the sun :/

 

[Jeros]

dont forget guys, sea shepard is out there doing some good work, at least someone gives a fuck

google it

 

[old.Tohtori]

Does human intelligence give us a god given right to think nothing else belongs on this planet apart from us?

What we should concentrate our efforts on getting rid of is pointless things like ticks and wasps, what the fuck are they good for?

You answered your first question with your second question.