Japan says it's time to allow sustainable whaling
Few conservation issues generate as emotional a response as whaling. Are we now about to see countries killing whales for profit again? Commercial whaling has been effectively banned for more than 30 years, after some whales were driven almost to extinction. But the International Whaling Committee (IWC) is currently meeting in Brazil and next week will give its verdict on a proposal from Japan to end the ban.
[...] IWC members agreed to a moratorium on hunting in 1986, to allow whale stocks to recover. Pro-whaling nations expected the moratorium to be temporary, until consensus could be reached on sustainable catch quotas. Instead, it became a quasi-permanent ban, to the delight of conservationists but the dismay of whaling nations like Japan, Norway and Iceland who argue that whaling is part of their culture and should continue in a sustainable way.
But by using an exception in the ban that allows for whaling for scientific purposes, Japan has caught between about 200 and 1,200 whales every year. since, including young and pregnant animals.
[...] Hideki Moronuki, Japan's senior fisheries negotiator and commissioner for the IWC, told the BBC that Japan wants the IWC to get back to its original purpose - both conserving whales but also "the sustainable use of whales". [...] Japan, the current chair of the IWC, is suggesting a package of measures, including setting up a Sustainable Whaling Committee and setting sustainable catch limits "for abundant whale stocks/species". As an incentive to anti-whaling nations, the proposals would also make it easier to establish new whale sanctuaries.
Previously: Japan to Resume Whaling, Fleet Sails to Antarctic Tuesday
122 Pregnant Minke Whales Killed in Japan's Last Hunting Season
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @08:35PM (5 children)
The prohibition was due to past attempts at whaling caps that drove some species to near or total extinction. Basically, if you can't ban them from the markets completely, poaching will destroy any attempts at caps.
Having said that, the ocean is so filthy and radioactive nowadays that one has to wonder who the hell is crazy enough to eat fish not sourced from farms? I mean, does the plastic and sewage add something to the flavor or something? Seriously. Might as well eat a dumpster rat.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 07 2018, @08:46PM (1 child)
How radioactive is "the ocean", really?
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @11:44PM
Depends. Ocean wide? Barely: https://www.livescience.com/61986-fukushima-anniversary-radiation-levels.html [livescience.com]
Around the Fukushima coast lines? Best avoided: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep09016 [nature.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 07 2018, @10:34PM (2 children)
If you think farmed fish is remotely clean, you have never paid attention to fish farming.
I'll take the glowing one over the one which spent its life literally swimming in shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @11:49PM (1 child)
Sick fish won't infect humans since the virus/bacteria aren't compatible. Fish eating plastic, human feces and radioactive waste will harm you.
So, disgusting as it may be, farm fishes living in their own waste are even safer than pigs living in similar conditions.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday September 09 2018, @02:29AM
The fish farms around here are in the ocean, with nets acting as a fence, so those fish are just as exposed to plastic, feces and radioactive waste as the wild fish. Share the same parasites as well, which is the reason for cooking (or freezing in the case of sushi) fish.