Should we care about whaling? (3 Viewers)

[Kwayera]

The point is the Australian government hasn't legally challenged Japanese whaling in an international court, a case which they would likely win.

It's possible that they could win, yes, but not probable. What Japan is doing (scientific whaling) is not technically illegal, though the case could be made that where they are doing it (Australian Antarctic waters) could be. And even if they do, what happens then?

 

[zstar]

Sure we have a lot of stuff the world needs, but most countries that need it don't have the coin to buy it, or if they do and don't buy it from us, they'll buy it dirt cheap from dirt poor countries. Japan doesn't have to shop from us.

Most of that stuff comes back to Australia in the form of Electronics, Cars, DVD's and Wii/PS3 consoles.

 

[Planck]

well they way pigs are commonly raised in australia should definitely be banned

am i part of this 'we'?

It's a self-defining, self-sealing we.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

Well. I think there's a difference, though I openly admit I have a bias in this situation. I don't think the way pigs are raised in Australia is unnecessarily cruel, nor how they are slaughtered (I agree with you re: battery chickens though. Disgraceful).

It's really difficult to kill a whale at sea. It's really difficult to even kill a whale that's stranded and thus stationary - to euthanise adult stranded whales, you generally have to pack a huge amount of explosives all around its head and hope for the best. At sea, there's added complications: the whale is moving, often very quickly (some species can go 30+ knots); the sea is moving in all directions, the boat is moving, and you need to ensure you can collect the body. Solution? Fire an explosive harpoon. Generally the whalers aim for the head, and aim for a quick kill, but because of all the reasons above, the average time-to-death for a harpooned Fin, for example, is something like 40 minutes after the first shot.

Yeah, I think there's a difference.

Haha, 40 minutes is nothing in comparison to what your average pig goes through.

They are castrated and have their tails removed at birth without anesthetic. They are immediately taken from their mothers and reared on an unnatural diet. They are then kept in tiny feed lots barely bigger than their bodies that are so small they can't even turn around. Many cannot even lie down comfortably. They spend around 2 YEARS in these excruciating conditions where they cannot even experience sunlight. Pigs are naturally intelligent and curious and many go insane from this confinement.

Then when it comes to being slaughtered, many animals including cows go through pain comparable to what whales suffer as well. Often they are not stunned properly and they are dipped in boiling water and skinned while they are still alive.

This is how most pigs in Australia are raised. Most people are aware of the plight of chickens. Cattle are raised in a similar way in the USA, and increasingly factory farming techniques are being used on cattle in Australia because by confining them in a tiny space in not letting them move it causes their muscles to atrophy which makes the meat more tender.

Selectively choosing whales to make a fuss about is laughably hypocritical.

Here's some footage from a typical Australian pig farm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PTPUYFwtwI

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

I don't think Japan has that much leverage (happy to be convinced by some numbers though). Sure, it might sting if we put our foot down, but we have a lot of stuff that a lot of the world needs. Whether the sting is worth the whales, well ... maybe it's too late for me to get into that.

Yep, the world's second largest economy and Australia's largest export destination has NO LEVERAGE.

Australia's claim to 70% of Antarctica is a joke anyway. We have no more right to it than anyone else on this planet. We don't actually use the land and surrounding waters, and we don't have the resources to patrol it or exercise any characteristics of ownership over it. Many countries including Japan don't even recognize this claim as being legitimate, considering that we are not exercising any real ownership over the territory, I would agree with them.

 

[JonathanM]

Haha, 40 minutes is nothing in comparison to what your average pig goes through.

They are castrated and have their tails removed at birth without anesthetic. They are immediately taken from their mothers and reared on an unnatural diet. They are then kept in tiny feed lots barely bigger than their bodies that are so small they can't even turn around. Many cannot even lie down comfortably. They spend around 2 YEARS in these excruciating conditions where they cannot even experience sunlight. Pigs are naturally intelligent and curious and many go insane from this confinement.

Then when it come to being slaughter,ed many animals including cows go through pain comparable to what whales suffer as well. Often they are not stunned properly and they are dipped in boiling water and skinned while they are still alive.

This is how most pigs in Australia are raised. Most people are aware of the plight of chickens. Cattle are raised in a similar way in the USA, and increasingly factory farming techniques are being used on cattle in Australia because by confining them in a tiny space in not letting them move it causes their muscles to atrophy which makes the meat more tender.

Selectively choosing whales to make a fuss about is laughably hypocritical.

Here's some footage from a typical Australian pig farm: YouTube - The Pig Files:Australian Pork Farms

It's completely different. Whales were recently endangered and we are trying to boost their population. In comparison, pigs are an introduced species here. Not to mention that there is a rampant wild pig problem in Northern/Central Australia.

That said I don't really give a shit about the whales that much. Just saying is all xD

 

[0bs3n3]

Haha, 40 minutes is nothing in comparison to what your average pig goes through.

They are castrated and have their tails removed at birth without anesthetic. They are immediately taken from their mothers and reared on an unnatural diet. They are then kept in tiny feed lots barely bigger than their bodies that are so small they can't even turn around. Many cannot even lie down comfortably. They spend around 2 YEARS in these excruciating conditions where they cannot even experience sunlight. Pigs are naturally intelligent and curious and many go insane from this confinement.

Then when it comes to being slaughtered, many animals including cows go through pain comparable to what whales suffer as well. Often they are not stunned properly and they are dipped in boiling water and skinned while they are still alive.

This is how most pigs in Australia are raised. Most people are aware of the plight of chickens. Cattle are raised in a similar way in the USA, and increasingly factory farming techniques are being used on cattle in Australia because by confining them in a tiny space in not letting them move it causes their muscles to atrophy which makes the meat more tender.

Selectively choosing whales to make a fuss about is laughably hypocritical.

Here's some footage from a typical Australian pig farm: YouTube - The Pig Files:Australian Pork Farms

Bacon tastes awesome though and they aren't endangered.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

Bacon tastes awesome though and they aren't endangered.

So its okay to put an animal through years of torture because we like the taste of their flesh, but its wrong to hunt an endangered species?

 

[Kwayera]

Haha, 40 minutes is nothing in comparison to what your average pig goes through.

They are castrated and have their tails removed at birth without anesthetic. They are immediately taken from their mothers and reared on an unnatural diet. They are then kept in tiny feed lots barely bigger than their bodies that are so small they can't even turn around. Many cannot even lie down comfortably. They spend around 2 YEARS in these excruciating conditions where they cannot even experience sunlight. Pigs are naturally intelligent and curious and many go insane from this confinement.

Sounds like your average puppy mill, tbh, and just as horrific. Still, I call serious shens on this being the trend for "most" Australian pig farms, given that the stress hormones produced under these conditions, and under conditions of a slow and brutal slaughter, would seriously degrade the quality of the meat.

Then when it comes to being slaughtered, many animals including cows go through pain comparable to what whales suffer as well. Often they are not stunned properly and they are dipped in boiling water and skinned while they are still alive.

In Australian abbattoirs? Bullshit. Facts, figures and reports please, because a lot of people I know in that industry would vehemently beg to differ. (Particularly my best mate who's family raises Angus beef for slaughter).

This is how most pigs in Australia are raised.

Prove it.

Most people are aware of the plight of chickens. Cattle are raised in a similar way in the USA, and increasingly factory farming techniques are being used on cattle in Australia because by confining them in a tiny space in not letting them move it causes their muscles to atrophy which makes the meat more tender.

Letting their muscles atrophy makes the meat more tender? What?

Selectively choosing whales to make a fuss about is laughably hypocritical.

There's something I don't understand about your argument. Yes, the plight of the animals that we use to feed us is terrible, especially in the case of chooks and (if the extent of what you say about piggeries is true, which I seriously doubt in Australia), but how is it hypocritical to champion the cause of whales? I get what you're saying that "if you care about this, why don't you care about this", but the fact is that charismatic megafauna are always used to champion causes of animal conservation and against cruelty. Everyone cares about the plight of endangered tigers, but no one actively cares about the endangered plant that happened to be included in the reserve that protects a tiger population.

It's give and take: the whaling industry (along with other ecological tragedies such as the extinction of the passenger pigeon, near-extinction of the bison, etc) and the campaign against it brought to the public eye the fact that we can destroy species needlessly, and cruelly, and that it needs to stop. It's not hypocrisy to rail against shooting a whale with a harpoon while eating a steak, considering the extent the animal industries in Australia have necessarily pulled themselved up by their bootstraps. If images of a whale taking an hour to bleed to death makes people think twice about where their steak/bacon/chicken wings comes from, and move entirely to private growers like we have - why is this a bad thing, and why are you so angry about it?

I also find it curious that you rage against Australian piggeries, but don't do the same against Australian puppy mills. Dogs and pigs have a roughly equivalent intelligence, though their uses are obviously very different.

 

[Kwayera]

So its okay to put an animal through years of torture because we like the taste of their flesh, but its wrong to hunt an endangered species?

You're taking the argument and making it about something largely unrelated. A better comparison would be that of cow/sheep/pig/chicken farming to fishing, which also has the added benefit of a conservation bent.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

Why do you doubt it happens IN AUSTRALIA as though Australia is so great?

Animal cruelty laws in Australia don't apply at all to animals raised for food and intensive factory farming is the cheapest way to raise pigs. It's obvious what most farmers are going to choose.

I'll have a look for more detailed stats soon, but I have read before that intensive farming is where most Australian pork comes from.

I am against puppy mills too. Im against all animal cruelty including cruelty to whales. Its you who is picking and choosing.

 

[Kwayera]

Why do you doubt it happens IN AUSTRALIA as though Australia is so great?

Because AFAIK we have some of the strictest animal cruelty laws in the developed world?

Animal cruelty laws in Australia don't apply at all to animals raised for food and intensive factory farming is the cheapest way to raise pigs. It's obvious what most farmers are going to choose.

If animal cruelty laws didn't apply in Australia to animals raised for food - wait, no, that's bullshit. Show me the law buddy, because I flat out don't believe you. If you're saying that these laws might as well not apply to these animals because they're not inforced, well, that's a different story.

I'll have a look for more detailed stats soon, but I have read before that intensive farming is where most Australian pork comes from.

But if intensive farming is so stressful, it would reflect in the quality of the meat, particularly for pigs. So again, I call shens.

I am against puppy mills too. Im against all animal cruelty including cruelty to whales. Its you who is picking and choosing.

But it isn't picking and choosing. This thread is about whether or not we should care about whaling. It says nothing about us not caring about animals raised for food, and no one is saying that we SHOULD care about whales and SHOULD NOT care about factory farmed animals. No one is even implying it, but here you are saying that we shouldn't give a shit about whaling because we apparently don't give a shit about factory farmed animals.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

Because AFAIK we have some of the strictest animal cruelty laws in the developed world?



If animal cruelty laws didn't apply in Australia to animals raised for food - wait, no, that's bullshit. Show me the law buddy, because I flat out don't believe you. If you're saying that these laws might as well not apply to these animals because they're not inforced, well, that's a different story.



But if intensive farming is so stressful, it would reflect in the quality of the meat, particularly for pigs. So again, I call shens.



But it isn't picking and choosing. This thread is about whether or not we should care about whaling. It says nothing about us not caring about animals raised for food, and no one is saying that we SHOULD care about whales and SHOULD NOT care about factory farmed animals. No one is even implying it, but here you are saying that we shouldn't give a shit about whaling because we apparently don't give a shit about factory farmed animals.

Animal cruelty laws lack punch // Animals Australia

There you go.

"The situation described above is permitted by section 6(1) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 Victoria, and its state and territory equivalents, which exclude "production" animals (the vast majority of animals in Australia) from the legislation's protection."

The article also details the extent of factory farming in Australia which is huge.

Australians are very concerned about a few dogs or horses being mistreated, but we have a total double standard when it comes to animals raised for food.

Considering the hundred of millions of animals raised for food (compared to only thousands of whales killed), the extreme cruelty of it, and the fact that we actually have the power to change it, I would say that it is a much, much more important issue than whaling.

Whilst I disagree with whaling there is very little we can do about it without resorting to violence against a much larger and more powerful country.

 

[Kwayera]

Animal cruelty laws lack punch // Animals Australia

There you go.

"The situation described above is permitted by section 6(1) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 Victoria, and its state and territory equivalents, which exclude "production" animals (the vast majority of animals in Australia) from the legislation's protection."

That seems at odds with what is listed here:

http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/nrenfa.nsf/LinkView/8E5C3A898AA02146CA25756D000F6AD951F52E6260BC77B8CA2572B10008EED4

http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-health/welfare/nccaw/guidelines/livestock

The article also details the extent of factory farming in Australia which is huge.

Australians are very concerned about a few dogs or horses being mistreated, but we have a total double standard when it comes to animals raised for food.

That may be because the issue is just not known. Again with the charismatic megafauna phenomenon, and with my analogy - do you get mad at the tiger conservationists for wanting to protect tigers in India, when there's other things to get madder about, like the welfare of the billions of cows there?

Considering the hundred of millions of animals raised for food (compared to only thousands of whales killed), the extreme cruelty of it, and the fact that we actually have the power to change it, I would say that it is a much, much more important issue than whaling.

In comparison to elsewhere, I think calling Australia's livestock industry extreme cruelty is unnecessarily hyperbolising. However, you're right. We do have the power to change it. So change it, or start trying, rather than having a go at people like me or tiger conservationists.

Whilst I disagree with whaling there is very little we can do about it without resorting to violence against a much larger and more powerful country.

That I agree with. Sigh.

 

[A High Way Man]

Japan is constitutionally limited from going to war. Let's bomb them with whale harpoons.

 

[Will Shakespear]

guys conservation & welfare are 2 completely different things, fyi

also, why doesn't the IWC just change the conditions of the 'scientific whaling permits' so you have to publish x number of papers as a product of the research, or the permit gets revoked

that way the japs have to actually prove they're researching, or stop whaling :S

 

[Enforsa_Said]

i.e. the results from taste tests.

 

[Fish Tank]

Japan is constitutionally limited from going to war. Let's bomb them with whale harpoons.

They have a defence force.

 

[Bereie]

BBC News - Anti-whaling activists accuse Japan fleet of attack

Anti-whaling activists have accused a Japanese vessel of ramming their high-tech speed boat during a confrontation in the Southern Ocean.

Video of the incident appeared to show the Japanese ship severely damaging the Ady Gil, but all six crew were rescued.

[youtube]-dXCR9LX-Kc[/youtube]
[youtube]Bbuq0YEIPNU[/youtube]
[youtube]9DK2jv8-J6s[/youtube]

 

[BlackDragon]

Although I think that neither side is objective enough to give a fair account of what happened, watching the whole video seems be somewhat incriminating. We still can't be clear on what happened though and its not really important.