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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, Interesting) by morgauxo on Tuesday December 01 2015, @04:02PM
How barbaric!
While I agree that endangered species (including whales) should not be hunted I think you have it totally backwards.
There are plenty of species that can be hunted wild without any danger of extinction. Here in the US we have laws about that, game hunting is allowed at specific times and limited so that populations never drop too low.
I think hunting meat is far more humane than farming it. Hunted animals get to live their natural lives as they please. They eat their natural foods. They live in their natural homes. They mate naturally. They live their lives free until the day they are eaten by a predator (human), just like could have occured with some other natural predator.
Farmed animals live in an overcrowded pen where they have to be stuffed with antibiotics just not to get sick from exposure to too many other animals. They are fed unatural foods to fatten them up. They do not get to make their own kinds of nest, just some dirty straw to lay in. Unless selected for forced mating they are usually in a uni-sex environment, no families. With many species they are disfigured, for example chickens get their beaks cut off. This is their lives until they die.
Of course one can buy food that is certified to have been raised in more human farms. Such food will always be more expensive because the supply is lower. Such farms cannot produce the same volume of food. No matter how much you encourage people to buy from them you will never feed 7-billion people that way. If all the inhumane farms were converted you would just have a lot of poor people starving while the rich pay more for their food.
I can respect a vegan's opinion even though I am not one. I can understand not wanting to hurt other animals. I can respect a hunter, even though it has been a few years since I have hunted. Predation is natural and we are naturally predators. I can even understand farming, 7-billion people are too many to get our food just wandering through the woods. But... somehow thinking that hunting is more objectionable than farming?!?! That's just F'd up dude!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 02 2015, @02:09AM
Unfortunately, the corporations continually get the government to redefine what it means to raise animals humanely. It's now humane to raise chickens in conditions so crowded that you need to cut off their beaks. And look into exactly what the term "cage free" means.
That said, one shouldn't over emote on the "natural state" of animal life. Farmed animals are normally slaughtered in a much more humane manner than are wild animals, whether the slaughterer is a human or another animal. Hobbs once described human life "in the state of nature" (whatever he meant by that) as "nasty, brutish, and short'. This is a fair description of the life of a wild animal. (Perhaps there are exceptions. Banacles might be an exception, e.g.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday December 02 2015, @04:31PM
Have you ever just sat in the woods and watched wild animals in the woods, going about their business? Short may be a correct description of their lives however I wouldn't say nasty and brutish applies unless you only chose to look at their dying moments.
Animals aren't slaughtered all that humanely either. It used to be common for them to just get shot in the head. Unfortunately animal rights activists protetested that method too much. Now they get electrocuted. In a chaotic, dirty environment electrocution is not always reliable. On the clock workers don't always have the time to make the distinction between dead and just stunned. Often animals get butchered alive!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:00AM
Yes, I have. Some of them seem to do quite well, but I doubt that a human observer gets an accurate picture. (OTOH, Hobbs clearly overstated his case.)
OTOH, some animals escape being killed by a predator (including, but not limited to, humans) and suffer permanent injury that is untreated and unrecovered. Animals are the original Stoics (as well as the original Dyonesians). Were I choosing, I'd probably choose to be a wild animal, but with actual humane treatment there are valid arguments on both sides. Unfortunately, that doesn't describe most agricultural practices. And especially not the "factory farms".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.