Scandinavian Hypocrisy: Activists' fury over Norway hunt of pregnant whales

originally posted by: Woodcarver
a reply to: burdman30ott6

I hunt. I fish. I kill and eat animals. I would not knowingly take a gravid mother for sport or for food. It does not make sense to deplete any population of gravid mothers. Minke whales are no different than cows or deer in this respect.

Great for you. I cannot say the same, though I follow the laws wherever I am hunting. If my tag permits a cow or doe and the season is colinear with the gestational window, I'm filling my tag with the knowledge that wildlife management has taken that fact into account and is looking towards greater population control.

On a related note, nobody who hunts antlerless tags is likely out there "for sport." They're looking for meat.

I have no idea why, but I always thought whale hunting was banned everywhere ?

Or was it only banned in some countries and not others ?

originally posted by: CranialSponge
I have no idea why, but I always thought whale hunting was banned everywhere ?

Or was it only banned in some countries and not others ?

Any nation not signatory to the International Whaling Convention isn't bound by any of their policies. That said, the countries that commercially harvest whales (Denmark, Iceland, and Japan) do so with some input regarding quotas from the IWC. In the US and Canada, native tribes are permitted to harvest bowhead whales every year under oversight from the NOAA and Canada's version of the same.

For what it is worth, whale meat tastes alright. It's a bit gamey, but when freshly cooked it's not at all bad. Up here they have something called Mukyuk which is the sliced blubber eaten raw. Not something I will be eager to eat again. Not sure if it was the sensation of chewing on a superball, the oil that renders from the stuff while you chew it, or the disgusting fermented whale oil it was dipped in before I tried it, but no... won't be doing that again.