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from the ♪but-there-ain't-no-whales-so-we-tell-tall-tales-and-sing-this-whaling-tune♫ dept.
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: 4, Funny) by acid andy on Friday September 07 2018, @08:47PM
You're damn right. Speciesism is exactly what it is. Though, strictly speaking, if you eat animals but stop short of cannibalism, then you're still a speciesist. I can see how it's a special case, favoring your own species, but you only have to look at the more commonly considered forms of discrimination to realize favoring one's own type is the most common form of it -- for example, racism against races other than one's own, sexism against gender(s) other than one's own, etc.
The only reasonable conclusion is that you're either OK with other beings suffering and dying to momentarily fill your belly, or you're not. Many people live in some sort of insecure denial, where they refuse to really think about these issues, or they find some spurious narrative after the fact to justify what they do.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?