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Save the whales....f**k everything else?

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  • 24-01-2008 12:19pm
    #1
    telecaster
    Registered Users Posts: 528 ✭✭✭


    I ask to be enlightened, not to WUM.

    Received another email from greenpeace today which advised petitioning of Canon to support their whale protection campaign in the Pacific.

    I saw the documentary on Channel 4 recently about the efforts of the crew on this campaign, it was excellent viewing to see their lives and adventures etc.

    The question is why have a campaign to save whales but nothing as high profile for the hugely overfished tuna or cod.....or any other fish/animal.

    What makes the whale so special?

    For any would be pedants, I already know its a mammal :)


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    #2
    CJhaughey
    Registered Users Posts: 14,906 ✭✭✭✭CJhaughey


    Whales are the posterboys for the green movement.
    Hard for most people to like a big bluefin tuna because they mostly don't come to the surface to breathe and be seen.
    IMO Whaling is OK, some may not like it but it really isn't doing much harm in the scheme of things, there is roughly 800,000 minkes in the Southern ocean and taking 1000 of them is not really a big deal.
    Of course people that don't like whaling will not agree but it is less about sustainable utilisation of resources then imposing their viewpoint on another.
    I find the shrill voices condemning whaling increasingly annoying, particularly as the whaling is legal.
    The point that many anti-whaling countries fail to realise is that that the IWC was setup to manage the sustainable use of whales, not to enforce the viewpoints of a few NGO's and the loudest voices currently in the debate Australia and New Zealand were in fact whaling nations when they entered the IWC.
    If the IWC prevents whaling, the Japanese and probably the Norwegians will probably pull out of the IWC and establish their own commercial whaling operations on the high seas.
    For these reasons I think a rational debate on the issue is necessary, however looking at the extreme positions adopted by the NGO's this is probably very unlikely.


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    #3
    AngryHippie
    Registered Users Posts: 2,625 ✭✭✭AngryHippie


    telecaster wrote: »
    The question is why have a campaign to save whales but nothing as high profile for the hugely overfished tuna or cod.....or any other fish/animal.

    What makes the whale so special?

    For any would be pedants, I already know its a mammal :)

    Aside from the mammal arguement, very little is known about the global whale population, their average lifespan, movement patterns, feeding dependencies etc. They have been studied and a certain amount has been documented but they are a little understood species.
    It may also turn out that whales are a sentient intelligent species. Nobody has really taken the time to check that one, but if any other species is likely to have evolved intelligence, I'd be betting on them, as they can support large brains, and have evolved complex communication abilities.
    Its a wee bit short sighted to hunt them without filling in the blanks first.


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