
Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt - Leary
https://japantoday.com/category/national/japan-fleet-catches-177-whales-in-latest-hunt
======
slimsag
Meanwhile, Norway kills more whales than Japan on average according to the
WDC[1] and proceeds to increase their quota for number of whales they can
kill[2] all while running government-backed campaigns to market whale-meat as
hip-and-trendy[3].

The real gruesome thing here is how we're not just hunting whales, but that
the ones we do hunt are roughly 60% of the time pregnant ones[4].

[1] [https://us.whales.org/whaling-facts](https://us.whales.org/whaling-facts)

[2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/07/norway-b...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/07/norway-
boosts-whaling-quota-international-opposition)

[3] [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/whale-meat-marketed-
to...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/whale-meat-marketed-to-young-
norwegians-as-hip-and-trendy/9802006)

[4] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/world/asia/whales-
japan.h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/world/asia/whales-japan.html)

~~~
avar
Whatever anyone thinks about whaling, that article from The Guardian has a
clear agenda of taking things out of context. It just says "Norway has
announced a 28% increase" in year-over-year whaling.

That's true, but compare that to historical values:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NorwegianWhaleCatches.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NorwegianWhaleCatches.png)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Norway#/media/File:...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Norway#/media/File:Whales_Nordic.png)

It's pretty telling that they're not opting to tell you that it's a gradual
ramp-up which is still around 1/2 of what they were doing in the 1980s.

The larger context here is that in 1992 Iceland, Norway et al. partially split
off from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and formed their own North
Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO)[1].

Whaling quotas are now at an impasse where these countries decide them
unilaterally, because the members of the IWC won't even have the discussion of
what would be a reasonable science-based quota.

I have yet to see any suggestion that the whales being hunted in the North-
Atlantic by these countries are threatened by these whaling practices. An
large year-over-year increase on a relatively small quota tells you nothing.
You need to look at how large the total stock is, how long it takes to renew
etc.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Marine_Mammal_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Marine_Mammal_Commission)

~~~
lovich
I was under the impression that most of the push back on whaling is because
whales are intelligent/sentient.

It's like asking someone what they think a reasonable, science based quota for
murdering people is. You're not gonna find a lot of room to negotiate when
that's the belief

~~~
flavor8
That's a slippery slope. Cows are intelligent, and have emotions.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA8dAnlD51o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA8dAnlD51o)

~~~
gascan
It is, but whales are pretty close to the top of that slope. If you elected
not to kill any animals due to probable sentience, the short list would
probably look like dolphins, elephants, and whales.

~~~
PurpleBoxDragon
Wouldn't numerous apes that operate in groups that seem like simple societies,
some of which have been seen passing down traditions like very simple tool
use, make the list?

~~~
ASalazarMX
Yeah, don't eat those too.

~~~
flavor8
Crows? Not that I'd _want_ to eat them.

~~~
King-Aaron
Can confirm, have tried to cook up a crow over the campfire for giggles, and
it was not something I'll do again.

------
yboris
My head spins about how schizophrenic the vast majority of the population is
when it comes to meat consumption and love of animals.

People shed tears over pets, yet pay others to abuse animals (factory farming)
just to enjoy a meal that's equivalently tasty to easily available options.
People will condemn the Japanese for eating whales or dolphins, the Chinese
for eating dogs, meanwhile they themselves cause the suffering of
significantly more animals.

I hope in very near future, the mocumentary _Carnage_ begins to resemble
reality:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnage_(2017_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnage_\(2017_film\))

~~~
wpdev_63
This is why I am incredibly excited about the impossible
burger:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebNeUihciDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebNeUihciDI)

It's the ultimate fake burger that has a 1/10 of the environment while being
vegan.

Now if there was an equivalent for chicken then it I would never eat another
animal again!

~~~
soared
Another meaning behind OP's comment might be that you can eat food that is
equally as tasty as meat, without eating meat or meat replacements. Obviously
this wouldn't work for 50+ years since we're all entrenched in eating meat,
but vegetarian dishes /can be/ just as tasty. I'd imagine hundreds of years of
improving mostly meat dishes has made them better, but that could be fixed.

~~~
emodendroket
If you're going to eat vegetarian, there are some cuisines, like Indian, that
give you more good options.

------
jondubois
I tried Minke whale when I was in Iceland. Unfortunately for them, they taste
very good - Maybe the best meat I've tried. It's like a cross between beef and
tuna but with a deep, complex (and very slightly gamey) aftertaste. It was
surprisingly cheap too.

In spite of this, I'm not sure I would eat it again though; while eating it, I
kept getting flashbacks of a video I saw of a whale being harpooned and pulled
out of the water with blood everywhere.

Rationally though, I don't know if eating whales is more immoral than eating
other animals. On the plus side, if you kill a single whale, you can feed a
lot of people; you could save several dozens of cows... Not to mention that
you're saving the lives of millions of krill that would have been eaten by the
whale that day.

So if you're a shrimp sympathizer, then you should consider whaling a good
thing. Personally, I can relate to feeling small and defenseless in this world
so I can sympathize with the shrimp on some level.

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
As someone with experience in animal farming (through family and friends), the
whale issue seriously does confuse me. The way commercial meat farming is done
is outright fucking disgusting. It's one of the biggest environmental issues
of our era.

Endangered species should be protected, absolutely. But if we're going to rag
on countries for fishing un-endangered whales, it's very much hypocritical.

"The IUCN Red List labels the common minke whale as Least Concern.[30] The
Antarctic minke whale is listed as Data deficient.[31]

COSEWIC puts both species in the Not At Risk category [1]. NatureServe lists
them as G5 which means the species is secure on global range [2]."

([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale))

For reference, I try eat as little meat in life as I can in general, and when
I do eat it, I try to as ethical as possible. I'm not perfect, but I'm always
trying to be better. I try not to judge other cultures on their eating habits
though, when we're systematically destroying the planet so our cheeseburgers
can be $1.

------
legostormtroopr
I hate the Western eco-hypocrisy when it comes to whaling.

Japan (and most of Scandinavia) have been whaling continuously for
generations. Dolphin ‘farming’ for hundreds of years without impacting yield
or stocks. It’s a huge cultural activity and they protect it.

But over the 1800-1900s the US, UK and Australia overfished whales at
industrial scales making populations plummet. Whaling towns in Southern
Australia literally ran red with rivers of blood. So in the 1970s and 80s
after we’d reaped industrial benefit and destroyed wild stock, we Westerners
decided that’s whaling was in fact really bad and decided to ban it - because
we f’ed it up for everyone.

There are arguments about cruelty during whale hunting, but the same can be
said for all farming, but the hypocrisy that a group of people can come in
decimate an animal population and then tell everyone not to participate in
their culture just doesn’t sit right.

------
trumped
At least we know the ocean is not empty yet...

~~~
krylon
I have been browsing through Wikipedia articles on various types of whales
recently, and I was pleasantly surprised how much some whale populations have
recovered since most of the world stopped hunting them. The conservation
status of humpback whales is LC ("Least concern"), gray whales, too.

It's not all good, far from it, but it is nice to know that collectively, we
manage to not mess up _everything_ we touch every once in a while.

~~~
pvaldes
Only some whales are recovered. Lets not forget that other went extinct
"yesterday", and some big whales didn't recover after fourty years of work. Is
not so simple.

~~~
krylon
Unfortunately, you are right. I did not mean to imply that everything is fine
for the whales.

Some species recover much more quickly than others, and in the mean time, we
continue to mess up their environment, be it by overfishing, global warming,
noise pollution (or just plain old pollution) or ships running over whales
like cars run over rabbits.

All I meant to say was that at least _some_ species have recovered rather
impressively under these conditions. Which is _far_ from perfect. But imagine
mankind had just continued hunting whales on the scale that was common sixty
or seventy years ago - there probably would not be enough whales around today
for Japan to kill 177 of them.

