Whale hunting

[BigB]

Is anyone else horrified by the Japanese/Norwegian/Icelandic attiude to whale hunting?
These are intelligent mammals. No reasoning can excuse this vile trade.
The Japs said "whale meat is an important part of our tradition". Well, burning withces was part of ours but we changed. How can we help in the campaign to ban this?

[BigB]

My argument hinges on my opinon that whale hunting is unneccessary and overly cruel. GET A LIFE!!!!

[kempie]

Likewise, my counterargument is that in my opinion the captive breeding of cows for meat is equally unneccessary and overly cruel...

...however I do not feel the need to make the argument personal and belittle you as you see fit to do to me.

As is often the case in the exchange of ideas and ideologies, opposing parties will never change their viewpoints and so I end this cyclical discourse with a hearty farewell.

[WaldoMcFroog]

"Waldo - Some species of whales are under the threat of extinction, not all."

Quite right. So, to qualify:

The most hunted whale is the Minke. That's currently classified as "near-threatened".

Sei whale are "endangered".

Bryde's Whales are "under conservation measures".

Humpbacks and Sperm whales are "vulnerable".

Fin whales are "Endangered".

These classifications are from http://app.iucn.org/webfiles/doc/SSC/RedList/r edlistcatsenglish.pdf by the way. I couldn't find cows on their list ;-)

So you're right. Only some are threatened with extinction at present levels. The others are merely 'vulnerable' or 'under conservation measures' or 'near threatened' (the only one which doesn't count as a threatened status).

It's just that one has to wonder what would happen to those statuses if hunting were allowed to resume..?

[kempie]

Waldo - I would also wish for present levels not to be increased but I cannot be party, as I see it, to bovine hypocrisy.

The number of Minke Whales killed in 2005 under IWC controlled whaling, by countries listed in Question:

Norway - 639
Japan - 601
Iceland - 39

This from a Minke Whale population estimated to be in the order of 184,000 (95% confidence interval, IWC Scientific Committee 2004) in the Central and North East Atlantic and a non-agreed estimate (originally 760,000 but likely to be revised to 50% of this figure) for North Pacific and Southern Hemisphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Wha ling_Commission
http://www.iwcoffice.org/conservation/estimate .htm#table

Thus 1,279 killed out of a population of (est.) at least 560,000; or, around 0.23%

There are around 12 million cows (inc. 3 million dairy) in the UK alone; over 3 million of the total are slaughtered annually. This gives a hit rate of over 25%

If only cows had it as good as the Minke ;-)

[WaldoMcFroog]

But cows are not under threat of extinction!

I'm sorry, how is it hypocritical to say, yes, farming is okay as long as it doesn't threaten the animal with extinction.

The same would apply to cows. Cows are manifestly not in danger of extinction, therefore, go ahead. If they were, then stop killing bloody cows.

The fact there's more more cows killed every year is completely irrelevant - it's not like a cow (or a whale) is aware of this fact. It's not standing there thinking, 'Oh no! Impending cow genocide!' I'm not attempting to argue farming is per se wrong, so where's the failure in the argument?

[kempie]

I never made extinction part of "my" moral argument. Posts earlier than yours made reference to cows being a sustainable resource; the figures above indicate that an argument can be made for Minke Whales also being a sustainable resource.

The consistent basis of my posts, written in answer to the original question, can be paraphrased thus; what is the fundamental difference between the two mammals that makes it anathema to kill a whale but perfectly acceptable to kill a cow?

By all means campaign to save the lives of 3,000 whales killed worldwide but at least spare a thought for the 100,000,000 cows killed during the same period.