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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: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 08 2018, @12:59AM (1 child)
Cows, pigs, & chickens, & fish are stupid. All they do is eat and shit, and they often lie in their shit. Pigs are a little smarter but they all exist for us to eat.
Whales are intelligent. Just because they haven't invented the wheel or fire doesn't mean we should go all out and slaughter them for some backwards desire to eat their flesh.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Saturday September 08 2018, @04:45AM
Pigs are not stupid. They are quite intelligent, often more so than dogs or horses. That said I do love me some bacon, and eat it regularly. I've also eaten and appreciate horse meat but unless starving I'd have trouble eating a dog, or a rat, no matter how it was raised. In grade school we took a field trip to a slaughter house, and I was raised on a farm so I've seen firsthand where my food comes from and still I like a good ham sandwich, fried chicken is the bomb, and Marys' little veal or rack of lamb is delicious. Go figure...
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge