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Japan Defends Scientific Value of New Plan To Kill 333 Minke Whales (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes with news that Japan plans on killing 333 minke whales this year as part of their whale research program in the Antarctic Ocean. "We did our best to try to meet the criteria established by the ICJ and we have decided to implement our research plan because we are confident we have completed our scientific homework," Joji Morishita, the nation's representative to the International Whaling Commission said. Science reports: "Japan has resumed its controversial lethal research whaling because it wants to determine how many minke whales can be harvested sustainably while studying the environment, Joji Morishita, the nation's representative to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), told a press conference today. 'We'd like to find out how the marine ecosystem of the Antarctic Ocean is actually shifting or changing and not just look at whales but [also at] krill and the oceanographic situation,' Morishita said.
Japan's whaling fleet last week departed for the southern seas for the first time since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the nation to halt its research whaling in March 2014. The court ruled that Japan's JARPA II program, which sought to take some 850 minke whales, 50 fin whales, and 50 humpback whales, was not for the purposes of scientific research as stipulated in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. The convention allows countries to kill whales for research."
Japan's whaling fleet last week departed for the southern seas for the first time since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the nation to halt its research whaling in March 2014. The court ruled that Japan's JARPA II program, which sought to take some 850 minke whales, 50 fin whales, and 50 humpback whales, was not for the purposes of scientific research as stipulated in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. The convention allows countries to kill whales for research."
Would any of these whales killed for "scientific" purposes happen to end up on the dinner plates of Japanese restaurant-goers?
I thought we were done with this shit. No one in the world believes Japan actually cares about the research and their "research program" has been debunked by the ICJ the one time it did come under scrutiny.
Heck even Terry Prachett made a joke about it in the discworld series:
"The Kappamaki, a whaling research ship, was currently researching the question: How many whales can you catch in one week?"
"it wants to determine how many minke whales can be harvested sustainably"
It's just happens that their test method is "kill them until it is no longer sustainable"
that you can't harvest 333 minke whales sustainable than it is too late... "Japan has resumed its controversial lethal research whaling because it wants to determine how many minke whales can be harvested sustainably while studying the environment"
Save the whales - eat a nip today!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They could at least wait until Fukushima stops leaking radioactive waste (which has now reached North America) before sending boats to kill more whales.
lucm, indeed.
One wonders if one would get the go ahead to perform the same experiment substituting "Japanese Whale Scientist" for "Mink Whale"... how many would we need to cull in order to put an end to such ridiculous idea and an end to hunting and killing these amazing animals?
And, unlike them, the fruits of our hunting won't make it onto any dinner plates...
I don't see why Japan is allowing this. Whales are an endangered species in Japan.
They should try this in the US, where whales are everywhere.
Minke Whale is still a misnomer based on the japanese "Minkku Kujira" chosen by conservationists because it sounds cuter than the correct "Lesser Rorqual".
When did the wrong name become right?
If it were truly for scientific purposes, they should discard the carcasses back into the ocean after research is done, and ban the meat from reaching dinner plates.
This should stop any activities falsely done in the name of science, as there is no longer an incentive to hunt the animals for food.
> Would any of these whales killed for "scientific" purposes happen to end up on the dinner plates of Japanese restaurant-goers?
Yes. One of the largest users is the Pierrot fast-food chain in Hokkaido. In fact, Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan is their evil spirit when it comes to whaling, as they are the most fanatical supporters of the carnage and they consume most of the giant sea mammal meat.
I would recommend the general public to target Hokkaido for effective boycott. One big bulls-eye is Hatsune Miku, the holografic jpop star. She is run by Crypton Future Media, a Sapporo, Hokkaido based company (which is effectively a front for Yamaha Music Corp.) In May 2016, Miku is to tour across North America (USA, CAN, MX) and people could urge venues like the Microsoft-Nokia Theatre to revoce her concert allocations over the whaling outrage.
(Note: Miku is really big for Hokkaido, about 1.2bn USD/year, but her PR value is magnitudes greater. In recent years she has effectively taken over the famous Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival, everywhere is placarded with "Snow Miku" and even streetcars are painted teal in her homage, it has become an outright commie personality cult for a piece of synthesizer software with a manga girl on the boxart... Her Project Diva / Mirai rythm games, to a large degree keep the PS Vita and Nintendo console markets alive. An international boycott of Miku could hurt the government's "Cool Japan" cultural export initiative very painfully, this is not a joke.)
Another, more carpet bombing style counter-action could be to boycott and mock of the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Should harpooning become a demonstration sport? Sumo wrestling in man vs dolphin setup?
I tried Whale when I was in Iceland. You know what? Its really yummy. You should try it!
Apparently, so is human. Do you volunteer? As science has progressed over the last few decades, things like different ways of scanning has allowed us to see what goes on in the brains of both humans and other animals, and the more we learn, the more we realise that most of the things we believed were uniquely human - feelings, intelligence, culture, .... - are in fact shared by many animals; certainly by a number of mammal and bird species. We used to think that all non-human animals were non-sentient - things - and we would refer to them as "it" rather than "he" or "she"; we now know that the distinction is far from as clear as that. So - we may well be killing what should rightly be regarded as "persons", not things. We may still decide that it is morally justified to do so, but we can't escape the moral considerations of what we are doing.
The nastiest thing is that whales live amazingly long (if not hunted...) Finds of black-powder propelled 1880's era harpoon fragments in recently deceased whales and analysing the aspartic acid level decay in their eyeballs has convinced scientists that whales can live until 185 to 211 years old. In other words, a matsuselah whale today may have been a calf witnessing the naval Battle of Trafalgar or the inaugural journey of Fulton's steamship, in first person!
People no longer find it acceptable to turn 200-year old giant turtles into soup and hopefully the same criterion will now be applied to whales!
http://www.marriedtothesea.com...
You're telling me in a world where humans bomb and murder one another, where entire nations lie in ruin at the hands of criminal cabals, and where all of this is endlessly apologised and even lauded by the very same who condemn this, that the Japanese shouldn't do this? Why? Because they didn't pay enough media protection money, or because "The West" suddenly has standards?
Spare me. And go visit a slaughterhouse before bitching at the Koreans over their dogs too.
He said slirpingly...It would be a shame to waste the flesh!
Had it up in Norway. I thought it was OK better than horse.
There are definitely moral inconsistencies. There was an interesting story in the Economist a few years ago about the background to Japanese whaling. Basically, the history was that Japan had been whaling around their islands sustainably for centuries, and then American and European whaling fleets turned up and emptied out the seas around Japan, and left again. Japan was pretty upset about this (they had an isolationist policy at the time), and this carried forward into today's opposition to western countries telling them that they can't whale because those same westerners killed all the whales.
Of course the generations that did all this are long dead, but as with most of these sorts of disputes, it just goes on for a long time. I think it is important to understand the background to Japanese opposition, rather than just write them off as somehow morally repugnant, because on their side many are still morally repulsed that the west who caused the whale problem in the first place are now going around pretending to be the good guys.
Hot Horse is an excellent horse burger shop in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Close to the Union brewery too: http://www.hot-horse.si/en
Mongolian BBQ in Budapest is another great restaurant that also serves horse meat (and just about every other animal that isn't endangered) If you're ever in Hungary and are not a vegetarian, you owe it to yourself to go there. http://www.mongolianbbq.hu/en/
sustainable living
Slashdot users are known for watching anime. By watching anime you are funding whale hunting. Watch American shows instead.
U.S. Department of Transportation continues the practice of capturing motor vehicles on I94 and I75 in Michigan. The 2016 quota have been negotiated to be 850 Fiestas, 50 Transits and 50 Corvettes.The department states that "it's necessary to maintain a high standard of scientific research on interstate transportation safety". USDOT secretary Anthony Foxx adds "We are acting in a environmentally responsible manner; all vehicles are duely recycled. No animals come to harm during these operations, and the contribution to the yearly US road fatalities is less then 3%".
Fail. There is no 'v' in Japanese. Had you written 'belly' or 'welly' it would have been semi-accurate. Regardless, fuck you.
One wrong (or many) does not make another wrong right.
"I need to say that they never betrays anything"
A bias indicator if I have ever seen one.
"Generally animal products produce fewer allergies and have fewer carcinogens than synthetic materials. "
That is a generalisation so bold as to be completely unsupportable.
I have an issue with people just drawing these arbitrary lines between different mammal species, where metacognition clearly extends all the way down. For example, you look at mice studies: mice, when presented with a scenario wherein they're presented with a challenge whose answer is either A or B, and can choose:
A) If it's the correct answer, large reward; if wrong, nothing
B) If it's the correct answer, large reward; if wrong, nothing
C) Regardless of whether it's correct, small reward
-... will almost always immediately choose A or B when the challenge presented is easy. But when you present them with a harder challenge harder challenge, they pausing, look back and forth, act more hesitant, and are much more likely to choose option C. That is, they're assessing how confident they feel about whether they know the answer. They're thinking about their own thoughts. That's called metacognition. It's long been one of the main definitions of sentience.
We humans like to think of ourselves as "separate" because of some huge ability over all other animals to reason. But while human reasoning ability is quite good, it's not good to the point of being in some whole different category. Even birds like psittacines and corvids can best human children up to a certain age in logic tasks (the age depending on the task). The field where humans really excel over other species, the field that really allowed us to take off, is communication - the ability to share ideas and coordinate complex plans with others. No other species comes even close to our communicative abilities. But is communicative ability where one should base its morality grounds?
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
If they don't want to eat whales or use their skins - that's fine - but they don't have the right to ram down their viewpoints down everyone else's throats, particularly other countries. It reminds me of abortion - if you don't like it, then don't have one but leave other people alone.
Precisely. And the same should be applied to laws against animal torture. If you don't like to slowly rip the flesh out from living kittens, then smashing their toes with hammers, and finally setting their bloodied bodies in fire, then just don't do it. As for those who enjoy hearing the screams of tortured dying kittens, let them. /sarcasm
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
"This has nothing to do with one wrong / many worngs"
..."
This has everything to do with it and how you put forward your argument defending Japan in this "scientific research" hypocrisy scheme. I am not condoning any country breaking international law, and in the case of Japan, every indication is that they are getting away with it as well, so no "DOUBLE STANDARD" here.
"Just because the Japs ain't 'whites'
No one is mentioning skin color except you so that should tell you something.
If whale populations have recovered to the point where they can support commercial whaling again then fine but in that case there should be quotas, just like there are for fish, and all nations which want to whale should be allowed to within the scientifically established quotas. Lying about "research" as a way to avoid all of this is not acceptable. At a minimum the rule should be that any whales killed for scientific reasons are destroyed afterwards and no part of them may be consumed to avoid extremely dishonest requests like Japan's.
Apparently not 333 minke whales! Oh, is it too soon? They aren't even dead yet, after all . . . but give it time.
In that case the correct actions are to present the research about how many whales can be harvested sustainably (this must meet international peer review standards, not just some national government review) to the IWC. Then request that whaling be allowed within these quotas. If they cannot come back with sensible, scientifically supported reasons as to why this is not sensible then you threaten to leave and, if ignored, you do leave (citing the unscientific, irrationality) and then limit yourself to the scientifically established limits.
That's the honourable way to behave. The dishonest, dishonourable way is to openly flout the international treat you signed by lying about the need to kill whales for research.
The field where humans really excel over other species, the field that really allowed us to take off, is communication...
We want to kill these whales so we can study how many whales we can kill.
If killing 333 whales doesn't cause population problems, we'll kill 366 next year to see what happens.
So I know little about whales, which whales there are a lot of and which aren't, and I'm not going to state any opinion on if they should be hunted or not.
However, I've been on whale spotting trips where we saw Minke whales which the spotters said were very rare to see (next to the Humpbacks that are apparently endangered but seem to be as common as any other fish). At the same time, I've been to several restaurants in Scandinavia that have Minke whale (specifically) on the menu.
Considering that, how much sense does it make to be angry at Japan here, while these animals are hunted and served in Europe as well, perhaps even in larger numbers?
How to sink Japanese whaling ships.
Just for science. Honest.
Yeah, the argument seems to be a weird one in this case. It's one thing to make that sort of argument about drugs/alcohol (those that do it hurt themselves, and that's their prerogative until they do something like drive). If you are opposed to killing animals or abortions, it's because you see it as victimizing a helpless victim, so an argument of cultural relativism doesn't really work.
Now another perspective would be whether the stance is inconsistent with the treatment of other sealife or land mammals. Whaling isn't that dissimilar to a lot of hunting that happens all the time on land.
Of course hunting *does* get restricted in scenarios involving migratory birds, and perhaps this is the relevant comparison point...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
As for those who enjoy hearing the screams of tortured dying kittens, let them. /sarcasm
There was a video of some people sawing up a whale shark they had dragged in. I saw they had already cut off it's fins when they started sawing it's tail of *while it was still alive, 'A real cunt act'. The animal gasped from pain as they just kept sawing through it, made me fucking angry. What wrong with killing something first before chopping it to bits?
Why do we have to be cunts to animals just because we can and are going to eat them?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Is that the same as the scientific value of testing the a-bomb on them?
Yes, I know that's over the top, but just as logical.
Just another day in Paradise
Then I defend the scientific value of sinking some Japanese Whaling ships. For science of course.
"I don't which is worse, that everyone has a price, or that the price is always so low"--Hobbes
I am not sure about a lot of folks, but I view the entire hunt as problematic. If we have multiple fleets hunting, using modern methods we are only a few weeks from putting entire species back on the list. Pollution, ocean acidification, over fishing and depletion of prey, and changing weather patterns/currents, along with multiple other stress factors look to harm the recovery in the long run. This one really scares me when it comes to whales recovering. http://news.nationalgeographic... For now, we really just need to leave them alone and try to clean up our mess.
I didn't realize Japan was full of douche bags...
So the opposition to whaling is from people who don't want to kill whales per se.
So isn't all the griping here just a matter of people who never want sustainable whaling to resume.
My gripe is that they are using a "for science" cover story. If they want to sustainably harvest whales, then come out and say it and make their case. 333 out of 500k (less than 0.1%) is a pretty good case. By publically saying they are actually harvesting whales, they also make it harder for someone to kill endangered species "for science". I would much rather they allow Japan to legally harvest 1000 whales a year and get rid of the "for science" loophole.
You're one to talk, after decades of stealing our fish en masse.
You do realize that concerning Icesave you took us to the EFTA and the court ruled AGAINST you and found us in the right on all counts, don't you? No, of course you don't know that. Icesave accounts were backed by a private fund, not the Icelandic government. Go to the Wayback Machine and check out the Icesave page and click on the link for more information - just one click away from the main page it states that, and that the secondary insurer is the British government. If you don't like privately backed investment accounts, don't invest in privately backed investment accounts.
As for Kaupthing, the executives actually did intend to deceive investors in the al-Thani case. And guess what? We threw them in jail for it. What more do you want, should we rip their toenails out with pliers?
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
Ehhh, I'e never been particularly enamoured of horse. I've tried it a number of times in Switzerland, but frankly, I find beef tastier.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"Now, friends, we should probably reel the whale in, the experiment is over. sushi time!"
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Culinary science?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I propose we imprison every politician that doesn't hold up their campaign promises so we can study the effects of incarceration on complex political constructs. Rei raised the best point of all the threads. Minke whales are not endangered so unless we start an outcry over hunting dear or wild boar I don't think this is a big deal.
As for Kaupthing, the executives actually did intend to deceive investors in the al-Thani case. And guess what? We threw them in jail for it. What more do you want, should we rip their toenails out with pliers?
Well, since we are discussing corrupt bankers and moral questions around sentience, then yes please.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates