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Japan will dispatch a whaling fleet to the Antarctic on Tuesday after a one year suspension, the government said, defying international criticism and a UN legal ruling that the "research" expedition is a commercial hunt in disguise.
"The research ships will depart for new whale research in the Antarctic on December 1, 2015," the Fisheries Agency said Monday in a statement on its website.
Tokyo has for years come under intense global pressure to stop hunts that opponents decry as inhumane but that Japan says are an inherent part of its traditional culture.
The United Nations' top legal body judged last year that Japan's so-called scientific whaling activity in the Southern Ocean was a disguise for commercial hunts.
It's for scientific research. Tasty, tasty research.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 01 2015, @06:25AM
An inherent part of its culture as stipulated by General Douglas MacArthur, the Scourge of the Pacific. Corncob pipe, feather boa dressing gown, he promised to return to the Phillipines, after he abandoned it to imperial Japanese forces. Maybe it was subtle revenge, suggesting that post-war Japan, suffering an extreme shortage of protein, start hunting whales. Did he know that this would cause Japan to be almost as much of an international pariah as they were when they invaded Manchuria? And the Japanese are too proud to admit that they were had. Well, at least they are not Norwegians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2015, @06:37AM
Only Greenpeace and ecoterrorists care about this.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2015, @06:49AM
Yeah expect no. I'm a hunter, i don't care for greenpiece much, but the japs hunting whales is not acceptable, same goes for norwegians. Japs lie about it, so that in it self makes it not acceptable. I'd just send war ships to make sure their whaling ships do nothing, if i could.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by moondrake on Tuesday December 01 2015, @01:01PM
I find this answer interesting. I think, if you are a hunter, you have very little logical reasons to disagree with whale hunting on the scales currently practiced by several countries. There is a lot of misinformation spread about this, but the Japanese whaling fleet has clear quota and rules about what and how many whales are caught. I do not want to claim that the guidelines are never violated (but this is the same for game hunting), but in general the program seems sensible to me as far as I was able to find out.
Now whether or not you feel like animals in general, or whales specifically, should be hunted at all is a different question. And although it is not nice to lie about the purpose of catching whales, it does not answer the question whether whaling itself is acceptable (Its sort of half a lie at that, since they do actually use some data for research, though not always, and quite possibly its not the primary reason for catching whales, but this is hard to prove). If you find it not acceptable to hunt whales for food (I do not, even though I have no problem with eating it, and in fact did), this still not automatically makes it OK for you to prevent other people from doing that.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2015, @04:13PM
I'm a hunter as well, and you know, it's just not the same. When deer and elk grace the endangered charts, then we can talk. If whales existed in such number they'd over compete for food thanks to their natural predators having been eradicated, you'd have made a great point.
If they want to eat whales, great. Whatever, if the quota doesn't hurt the sustainability of the species. Let's just not pretend science has anything to do with it.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Wednesday December 02 2015, @11:07AM
There are however whales and whales. Reading the wikipedia entries on whale hunting, there are charts of what species or populations are endangered and in what areas. In fact, the pro-whaling lobby argues that in some areas, there are simply too many whales compared to the amount of food available (in the case of whales one may perhaps even argue, though I do not know if this is valid, that hunting non-endangered species frees up food resources for the more endangered whales). The quota that for example Norway uses are revised yearly based on estimates of the population sizes and they are not allowed to hunt endangered species, or threatened populations. I still fail to see why it is so different from hunting other animals (assuming that the hunting is done responsibly).
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 01 2015, @07:08AM
Um, you do realize that the invasion of Manchuko was denounced by the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, and Japan just walked out. Kind of the end of the League of Nations, and the beginning of WWII. I mean, later, when Germany under the 3rd Reich, claimed the right to hunt whales in Poland, everyone realized the League was doomed, since it had no power to sanction any member state. And much later, when George W. the Bush said, "Thar she blows" about Iraq, well, what could anyone do? I mean, a nation state ruled in the same fashion as a Quaker Whaler out of New Bedford, with a captain named Ahab? Oh, I fear that this is only a case of an Asian nation coming on the scene much too late, after the novel has already been written. There will be no Japanese Ahab, no Japanese Starbuck, except for those Starbucks that are actually in Japan, and no Japanese "Modubi Diku", except, of course, when the international community does put pressure on Japan, as a civilized nation, to drop the pretense of research, and end the whale hunts entirely.
So, my dear AC, yes, more than Greenpeace and Sea Shepard (see! you can use their name! nothing bad will happen) care about this. And they will be heard. You, since you are Anonymous, must be too busy tracking down KKK members to see this, which is forgiveable. But make no mistake, whaling, like chattel slavery and natto, will vanish from the face of the earth! Mark my works. Or somebody else's words! Mark any words that open your mind to fact that Greenpeace is correct. I know it's hard. But, it gets better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2015, @12:14PM
Wasn't the League of Nations the nemesis of the Black Justice League?
Or am I thinking of the Legion of Doom? . . .
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 01 2015, @06:45PM
History: destroyed by video games and comic books. As if the re-write of Dante wasn't bad enough, or the gay fascist version of the Persian Wars.