Why the Japanese whaling "scientists" are batshit (2 Viewers)

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

What reason do nations have to kill whales, endangered or not? Recent reports in Japan have contradicted the idea that it's a tasty animal. They're not doing research.

What reason do we have to have battery hens? Because we like a variety of cheap food that probably isn't all that good for our health anyway?

 

[boris]

What reason do we have to have battery hens? Because we like a variety of cheap food that probably isn't all that good for our health anyway?

Well...chick is good for your health mang, and hens are bred to be slaughtered.

If they can design a way to mass breed whales and kill them humanely then whatever.

For the record, we as consumers can easily bypass eating battery hens. Choose organic kids. But really, I can't see a correlation between animals bred for slaughter and animals like whales which have no real value to humans at all. I mean seriously, they're not tasty, they've got no scientific value.

The japs are just fucking weird.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

i can honestly say intensive pig farming is not humane

note that pigs are more intelligent than whales or dogs ^_^

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Well...chick is good for your health mang, and hens are bred to be slaughtered.

So what if they're bred to be slaughtered? They could be bred/looked after much better than they are.

If they can design a way to mass breed whales and kill them humanely then whatever.

I don't think for the numbers the japanese are currently taking of some species they need to worry about their breeding. As for killing them humanely, what about hunting, are you against that? Surely hunters won't kill all their kangaroos humanely just as not all whaling vessels will manage to get a kill shot with their harpoon.

For the record, we as consumers can easily bypass eating battery hens. Choose organic kids.

And we as consumers can bypass buying whale products.

i can honestly say intensive pig farming is not humane

Yeah it's the same situation as battery hens just with what is likely a more intelligent creature.

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My point here isn't really to argue for whaling, I think it's wrong - But I also think the sort of self-righteous moralistic bullshit we try to pull is a crock of shit.

 

[boris]

i can honestly say intensive pig farming is not humane

note that pigs are more intelligent than whales or dogs ^_^

pigs are shit tho, tbh.

 

[boris]

So what if they're bred to be slaughtered? They could be bred/looked after much better than they are.



I don't think for the numbers the japanese are currently taking of some species they need to worry about their breeding. As for killing them humanely, what about hunting, are you against that? Surely hunters won't kill all their kangaroos humanely just as not all whaling vessels will manage to get a kill shot with their harpoon.



And we as consumers can bypass buying whale products.



Yeah it's the same situation as battery hens just with what is likely a more intelligent creature.

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My point here isn't really to argue for whaling, I think it's wrong - But I also think the sort of self-righteous moralistic bullshit we try to pull is a crock of shit.

This is what goes down with most kangaroo hunters;

If they're hunting for meat, the desired kill is a quick, clean head shot. Shooting in the body damages the integrity of the meat and it makes for a pain in the ass to locat the bullet.
Depending on the power of the rifle, it also fucks the body up considerably. If you're killing roos for meat/fur, nobody shoots them in the body unless they're retarded and can't shoot.

If they're hunting kangaroos, they're hunting them for a reason. Just like if they're hunting foxes or rabbits. If you don't want to hunt a fox or rabbit for any othe reason than to eradicate vermin, you usually use 1080 fox bait or some rabbit shit that's currently available.

Anyway, I don't see how we can argue for the slaughtering of an animal like a whale just because other animals are killed inhumanely by people. We should be advocating that all animals be killed as quickly and efficiently as possible, there is no reason any animal should suffer regardless of how shit it is.

By advocating killing whales "coz we can", we're also saying it's okay to stomp on puppies heads coz they'res lots of puppies in the world.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Anyway, I don't see how we can argue for the slaughtering of an animal like a whale just because other animals are killed inhumanely by people. We should be advocating that all animals be killed as quickly and efficiently as possible, there is no reason any animal should suffer regardless of how shit it is.

Sure thing, I agree with this. So let's stop bitching about what the japanese do to whales more than we bitch about what we do to chickens, pigs, sheep (when we send them live in cramped conditions on a boat to the middle east) and so forth.

By advocating killing whales "coz we can", we're also saying it's okay to stomp on puppies heads coz they'res lots of puppies in the world.

By advocating farming pigs inhumanely "coz dey taste gud", we're also saying that it's okay to farm puppies inhumanely coz sum1 thinks they taste good.

 

[boris]

Fine, then Japan can fuck off and farm their own whales and leave whales in international waters alone.

/end argument

 

[Captain Gh3y]

i would suggest that this notion of a whale farm is somewhat impractical

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

i would suggest that this notion of a whale farm is somewhat impractical

lol

 

[Kwayera]

But until they actually do become threatened/endangered this doesn't seem to be a problem, as for their difficulty with birth... while they're obviously not as prolific as cows, my understanding is that it depends on your whale.

Not really. Like all apex predators, whales are SLOW breeders, and have relatively FEWER numbers. The reason why we can farm cows, pics, chickens etc is that they are some of the few animals that can be readily domesticated and breed prolifically. Also note that most, if not all of the animals we eat (not including fish) are herbivorous. Not apex carnivores, like whales.

A lot of animals are not killed humanely and we live with these killings, while we allow these to continue I do not see how we are justified in targeting japanese whalers.

Not for produce-related animal husbandry. Abattoirs have humane killing standards that they have to follow.

True, but perhaps also because many of them are still being hunted anyway?

The numbers I quoted are specific to the blue whale, which is totally protected worldwide, and has been since 1966. Not even the Japanese would dare hunt a blue whale (we revolted when they suggested to hunt humpbacks, whose populations have recovered relatively better); and in the 42 years since protection, there has been an (at best, counting only the small Antarctic population) increase of 7.2%; total worldwide average growth is about 0.5%.

 

[Kwayera]

i can honestly say intensive pig farming is not humane

note that pigs are more intelligent than whales or dogs ^_^

Well I can't say the farming itself of pigs is humane (battery hens certainly aren't), but the actual killing must be quick and painless (especially important in the case of pigs, in which fear hormones can sour the meat).

And wrong; they may be smarter than dogs, but they aren't smarter than whales.

 

[Kwayera]

I don't think for the numbers the japanese are currently taking of some species they need to worry about their breeding.

That's totally incorrect. As a matter of course usually larger animals are taken; these are breeding-age animals. What happens when you remove the mature breeding-age population from a species that reproduces poorly, slowly and inconsistently?

ANY artificial attrition is significant to the detriment to such species.

As for killing them humanely, what about hunting, are you against that? Surely hunters won't kill all their kangaroos humanely just as not all whaling vessels will manage to get a kill shot with their harpoon.

As Kate already said, it's in the hunter's best interest to aim for a clean head-shot. I am not against the humane hunting of a species, like kangaroos, that isn't endangered (and is in fact a pest in some places).

And we as consumers can bypass buying whale products.

The whale meat is so unwanted in Japan they have to GIVE it away. Apparently market forces aren't the issue here.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

oh, well as long as the death is quick and painless

 

[Kwayera]

i would suggest that this notion of a whale farm is somewhat impractical

Exactly the point. You cannot farm whales, no matter how hard the Japanese try to make them into cow-crossbreeds.

 

[Studentleader]

Fine, then Japan can fuck off and farm their own whales and leave whales in international waters alone.

/end argument

Seconded,

Greenpeace are worse then the Japanese imo.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Not really. Like all apex predators, whales are SLOW breeders, and have relatively FEWER numbers. The reason why we can farm cows, pics, chickens etc is that they are some of the few animals that can be readily domesticated and breed prolifically. Also note that most, if not all of the animals we eat (not including fish) are herbivorous. Not apex carnivores, like whales.

The Minke whales they're hunting... there's around 200,000 of them and they take say 600 a year. Sure if they really are slow breeders this might continue to dwindle their numbers down, but there's a long way to go before we need to be stopping them on the grounds that they're endangered.

Not for produce-related animal husbandry. Abattoirs have humane killing standards that they have to follow.

We drag out tortured lives for pigs/chickens then eventually kill them in at least occasionally less than humane ways.

We allow hunters to hunt animals and they're unlikely to always get a kill shot, even if they'd like to.

And wrong; they may be smarter than dogs, but they aren't smarter than whales.

How do you know that?

That's totally incorrect. As a matter of course usually larger animals are taken; these are breeding-age animals. What happens when you remove the mature breeding-age population from a species that reproduces poorly, slowly and inconsistently?

ANY artificial attrition is significant to the detriment to such species.

I get that they will reduce the numbers of whales, but until it's anywhere near the point where they're endangered I don't see why we care? Yes, you are engaging in an unsustainable farming method - So?

The whale meat is so unwanted in Japan they have to GIVE it away. Apparently market forces aren't the issue here.

That's their problem.

 

[Kwayera]

oh, well as long as the death is quick and painless

I agree that suffering during life should not be permitted, which is why I disagree with much of the farming practices involved with chickens and indeed pigs.

But I think we can also argue that firing an explosive harpoon into a whale's body after chasing it for hours, then electrocuting it, and finally hoisting it by its tail to take 15 minutes to drown in its own blood is inexcusably inhumane.

 

[Kwayera]

The Minke whales they're hunting... there's around 200,000 of them and they take say 600 a year. Sure if they really are slow breeders this might continue to dwindle their numbers down, but there's a long way to go before we need to be stopping them on the grounds that they're endangered.

200,000, including those well-before and well-past breeding age (whales do experience menopause), is not much. When you take into account the fact that populations do not easily congregate, which makes it that much harder to find mates, taking "say 600" breeding-age animals per year is a HUGE number.

We drag out tortured lives for pigs/chickens then eventually kill them in at least occasionally less than humane ways.

We allow hunters to hunt animals and they're unlikely to always kill the animal early.

And I don't think that's right either. Why do pigs and chickens, in this case, have more rights than whales - at least they DO get to be killed in a humane manner BY LAW.

Define what hunter you're talking about. Hunting for fun? Again, the benefit to the hunter is for a quick headshot, so as to not spoil the skin. Hunting for food? Like Kate said, quick headshot so as to not taint the meat.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

I agree that suffering during life should not be permitted, which is why I disagree with much of the farming practices involved with chickens and indeed pigs.

But I think we can also argue that firing an explosive harpoon into a whale's body after chasing it for hours, then electrocuting it, and finally hoisting it by its tail to take 15 minutes to drown in its own blood is inexcusably inhumane.

Ok, so you're up for banning battery hens and setting tougher standards for pig farming? Kewl, being consistent is awesome.

And I don't think that's right either. Why do pigs and chickens, in this case, have more rights than whales - at least they DO get to be killed in a humane manner BY LAW.

They have less rights? They're not subjected to an entire life in captivity, born into a frightening, disease ridden, cramped gaol.

Define what hunter you're talking about. Hunting for fun? Again, the benefit to the hunter is for a quick headshot, so as to not spoil the skin. Hunting for food? Like Kate said, quick headshot so as to not taint the meat.

They'll miss. My understanding is that most Norwegian whalers kill the whale as soon as it's harpooned.