Endangered Fin whales slaughtered in Iceland.

steddyeddy

It seems Iceland has resumed hunting endangered Fin whales. Link here

I don't see how this can be justified in this day and age. Whales are intelligent animals and form strong emotional bonds with other family members. Like us they have spindle cells in their brain which indicates an emotional capacity and intelligence. Apart from this Fin whales are endangered species. There is no good reason to kill these endangered species and there has been revelations that some of it has ended up as dog food for the equally regressive (in terms of animal rights) Japanese culture.

What's your view on this? The Icelandic government claim it's traditional and Iceland should be exempt from whaling regulations I personally don't give a feck about a tradition of an endangered species is slaughtered or an animal tortured for fun (bullfighting).

Anyway I'm including a poll asking does tradition make hunting endangered animals or killing them for spectator sport make it any more acceptable?

woodoo

Tradition is used to act the bollox quite a bit around the world. I think they should leave the whales alone.

Mr Benevolent

If the whales are as smart as you make out they'd never be caught.

steddyeddy

Second time a poll messed up for me

The question is :

Does tradition make hunting endangered animals or killing them for spectator sport make it any more acceptable?

Kylo Ren

Whale now, what do we have here.

steddyeddy

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

If the whales are as smart as you make out they'd never be caught.

Well humans are smart and in captivity in prisons. It's not as simple as that.

IM0

im not your ma, what?

Riddle101

It's Iceland, they are jerks.

My name is URL

Apart from slaughtering whales and banging your cousins there's not a hell of a lot else to do in Iceland

Seriously though, no.. of course it's not acceptable.

IM0

wait, an ACTUAL save the whales thread

Grayson

steddyeddy wrote: »

Does tradition make hunting endangered animals or killing them for spectator sport make it any more acceptable?

Yes it's ok. If you're a native tribesman who lives in a hovel and you've never seen an electrical appliance.

If you've upgraded to sonar and have ditched every other aspect of your traditions, no it isn't.

slippy wicket

Whatever about the whales , they should hunt those sea Shepard wastes of oxygen as well.

Atlantic Dawn

They are using 2 vessels the Hvalur 8 and 9 which are over 60 years old, both are traditional whaling boats not like the modern fleet Japan have.

Wibbs

Grayson wrote: »

Yes it's ok. If you're a native tribesman who lives in a hovel and you've never seen an electrical appliance.

If you've upgraded to sonar and have ditched every other aspect of your traditions, no it isn't.

This in a big way. Inuit folks who hunt a couple of whales a year in the traditional fashion and eat/use everything from snout to fluke yes, guys with a supermarket down the road no. It's a cultural thing? So was bear baiting and dog fighting. Given we've hunted a couple of whale species to extinction and others are barely hanging, these fcukwits need to cop the fcuk on. Like the Japanese who want rancid whale meat with their sushi. Sod off. The plain fact is some cultural practices are stupid/barbaric and should be left firmly in the past.

meoklmrk91

woodoo wrote: »

Tradition is used to act the bollox quite a bit around the world. I think they should leave the whales alone.

This, I think tradition is just a cover up for people to continue to do ****ty things because they like them despite the fact that the rest of the world has moved on. Dog fighting was once tradition, bull baiting, bull fighting, bear baiting, people who race horses on main roads threatening people's lives and causing damage to the feet of their horses, coursing These are all things done in the name of tradition :rolleyes:

Pretty sure it was also considered tradition that anyone who wasn't a white male was treated like an underling with no rights, for husbands to beat their wives and for naughty children to be beaten with belts, sticks, whatever by whomever, parents, teachers etc. It's traditional for Warren Jeffs to marry child brides and abuse them. Traditional does not make it right, in fact most of the time when I hear people spouting off about their traditions they are generally a bastard, doing bastardy things. But sure we can't be pissing off the minorities now, if they want to act like savages we have to let them.

Boombastic

I'd say it leaves a big mess in the shop.

Capt'n Midnight

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

They are using 2 vessels the Hvalur 8 and 9 which are over 60 years old, both are traditional whaling boats not like the modern fleet Japan have.

You can see the traditional radome (radar dome) here
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?MMSI=251605000
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?mmsi=251365110

The walkway would indicate it's using a harpoon and these days that means the whale gets electrocuted. And since blubber is a poor conductor of electricity that means the current goes through eyes, lips and genitals. Not cruel or unusual then.

IvySlayer

Boombastic wrote: »

I'd say it leaves a big mess in the shop.

Clean up on aisle 4

endacl

No problem with it. Once they give up everything, and I mean everything, that's not traditional to Icelandic culture. So... no modern medicine, no electricity, no .....

Well, ye get the picture. If they want to keep traditional whale hunting for no good reason other than they want to, I can respect it once they're consistent.

syklops

Wibbs wrote: »

This in a big way. Inuit folks who hunt a couple of whales a year in the traditional fashion and eat/use everything from snout to fluke yes, guys with a supermarket down the road no. It's a cultural thing? So was bear baiting and dog fighting. Given we've hunted a couple of whale species to extinction and others are barely hanging, these fcukwits need to cop the fcuk on. Like the Japanese who want rancid whale meat with their sushi. Sod off. The plain fact is some cultural practices are stupid/barbaric and should be left firmly in the past.

Hate me if you will but occasionally I like to shoot pheasants. A long time ago, other people who shot pheasant realised to keep doing it, they needed to let them breed and raise young, and to only target the males, for there to be more the next year.

Iceland and Japan need to realise something similar and start farming and nurturing the stocks of whale they have other wise a century from now the Icelandic and Japanese people will be lamenting how they can't hunt whales like their ancestors did.

Most people didn't but I liked Seaquest DSV, and there was an episode where an ex-green peace activist bought a former french Nuclear submarine and was using it to torpedo Icelandic whalers. I've been looking forward to that headline since I was about 9. Not given up hope yet.

BillyMitchel

Is this the same from whale wars on discovery channel?


It was a pretty good show, personally its not something I agree with but if I remember correctly a lot of the islanders needed the whale meat. Faeroe Islands if I'm not mistaken.

Jester252

Remember to endanger the lives of people in order to saves the whales like they do in whale wars.