Obama Leading Effort To Lift Global Ban On Commercial Whaling

reply to post by Raustin




oops

reply to post by ShadowAngel85



I don't know about whales, but there was a push to have dolphins become "non-human beings".

www.physorg.com...

The behavioral studies showed dolphins (especially the bottlenose) have distinct personalities and self-awareness, and they can think about the future. The research also confirmed dolphins have complex social structures, with individuals co-operating to solve difficult problems or to round up shoals of fish to eat, and with new behaviors being passed from one dolphin to another.

Several examples of learning being passed on to other individuals have been observed. In one case a rescued dolphin in South Australia, taught to tail-walk during recuperation, in turn taught the trick to other wild dolphins in the Port Adelaide river estuary when she was released. According to marine biologist Mike Bossley it was "like watching a dance craze take off", with the dolphins apparently learning the trick just for fun, since tail-walking has no natural function.

Work carried out by professor of psychology at the City University of New York, Diana Reiss, showed dolphins could recognize themselves in a mirror, and could use it to inspect other parts of their bodies, an ability previously only demonstrated in humans and a few animals such as apes, elephants and pigs. In another study Reiss was able to teach captive dolphins a rudimentary language based on symbols

I don't think I'm a stupid animal lover, yeah I like animals, but I eat meat and get completely annoyed with PETA. But if you believe in science, there ya go. Remember that change Obama kept talking about? Maybe we should kick him to the curb and make the change happen ourselves. It goes anywhere from immigration laws to animal rights. He was right we do have a lot of things we need to change, but he's just making changes for the worse.

And I understand this thread is about whales and not dolphins. I admittingly don't know if whales are the same way, but someone above said they were both considered about the same.

Heck, maybe our world leaders are threatened by underwater societies of whales and dolphins overtaking the world. THAT would be something!

I can't say whether the proposal by the IWC would work to decrease the number of whales killed, I can't find ANY indication that Obama supports the proposal. Except of course, the paragons of truth, FOX News. In fact, I found the briefing in which the IWC spoke with Monica Medina, U.S. Commissioner, International Whaling Commission

On May 27, 2010, Monica Medina, U.S. Commissioner, International Whaling Commission said that the US will NOT support the current IWC proposal, but Obama said he will LISTEN to it.

This reminds me of when Obama said he would be willing to talk with our enemies and everyone went stark-raving mad because he was willing to "appear weak" and so on.

ANYhoo,

US Dept of State Briefing

QUESTION: My name is Toshi Katsuda from Asahi Shimbun, Japanese daily newspaper. My question is for Ms. Medina. The U.S. Government – it’s stay on the same position that supposed to – moratorium, as strongly still? Is it the same?

MS. MEDINA: Yes, absolutely, the U.S. continues to support the moratorium. And in fact, one of the key elements of the proposal that makes it possible for us to even consider it is that the moratorium would not be lifted or waived , changed or amended. There wouldn’t be anything different going forward if this proposal were agreed to by the IWC. The moratorium remains in place and we, the US, would not support anything that didn’t do that. So yes, we remain strongly committed to the moratorium.

Looks like Faux News lied again... Hard to believe people here are so willing to believe the MSM when it suits their agenda... :shk: And you didn't look ANY further... Shame.

Obama may still support something that the IWC proposes, but for now, it seems he's just listening.

reply to post by maybereal11

The status quo on whaling...Moratorium..No Whaling...

Japan, Norway and Iceland completely IGNORE the moratorium.
Greenpeace and others attack thier boats.

This proposal? It puts limits on how many whales they can hunt and oversight on those countries whaling operations.

It drastically REDUCES the numbers of whales killed each year...

Really? They currently IGNORE the moratorium.

What makes you think they will obey any international law on whaling? The fear of a "strongly worded response" from Obama and the UN?


reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

I can't say whether the proposal by the IWC would work to decrease the number of whales killed, I can't find ANY indication that Obama supports the proposal. Except of course, the paragons of truth, FOX News. In fact, I found the briefing in which the IWC spoke with Monica Medina, U.S. Commissioner, International Whaling Commission

On May 27, 2010, Monica Medina, U.S. Commissioner, International Whaling Commission said that the US will NOT support the current IWC proposal, but Obama said he will LISTEN to it.

Two things wrong with this:

First, the continued belief in what Obama says. You would think that people would realize by now that that bozo lies through both corners of his mouth.

Second, discounting information just because it came from Fox News. I won't even address that. All I can say, is those folks should probably stick with MSNBC and the 'paragons of truth' over there. You know, the Chris Matthews "I forgot he was black" commentators.

the oil spill is going to kill a bunch of them anyways. Obama is a crook and I hope one day he is brought to justice

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Well, seeing as your distaste for Fox News is showing, maybe a blog post on one of your most trusted favorite sites will do.

Mr. President, Don't Give Whalers a License to Kill

Dear Mr. President,

Is it possible that the Obama Administration will capitulate to a proposed plan that permits Japan, Norway, and Iceland to resume commercial whaling?

As unlikely as it sounds, the answer is yes. The Obama Administration has indeed supported, behind closed doors, a dangerous new proposal to overturn the global whaling ban.

Since President Ronald Reagan first helped usher in the international ban on commercial whaling, every American President has reasserted our nation's strong leadership in the fight to save the whales.

From the shores of Cape Cod to the California coast and across the political spectrum, Americans love whales. Five national surveys commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) over the past decade show overwhelming majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents want these intelligent, gentle creatures protected for future generations. Voters of all subgroups - from rural, conservative GOP members, to urban, liberal Democrats - want our government to stop Japan, Iceland, and Norway from hunting whales.

All the more stunning then, to learn that U.S. government bureaucrats, together with fisheries representatives from a dozen other countries, have emerged from three years of closed-door meetings with a proposal to lift the ban on whaling. The proposal not only rewards Japan, Iceland, and Norway for flouting international law, but also gives these three nations "a license to kill" whales commercially. The group's final proposal, which was released on April 22nd (Earth Day!), and which will be voted on this June, is as unwise as it is out of the American mainstream.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is an eighty-eight nation body charged with conservation of our planet's whales. In 1986, after whale populations were plundered to near extinction, the IWC declared a ban on commercial whaling. It remains one of the 20th century's most iconic conservation victories.

However, since the ban was enacted, more than 30,000 whales have been killed -- most in an international whale sanctuary around Antarctica. Why? The Government of Japan claims it kills whales exclusively for research purposes. It's an outrageous assertion rejected by the scientific community and undermined by the fact that Japan hunts whales on factory ships and sells whale meat commercially. Japan is now rumored to be seeking a new, state-of-the-art $100 million whaling vessel.

Iceland and Norway, emboldened by ongoing negotiations to undo the whaling ban, have recently ramped up their illegal whaling efforts to lock in higher quotas that will be made possible under this new agreement.

Even without this assault, whales face more threats today than ever before. Marine pollution, destruction of critical habitats, entanglements in fishing gear, collisions with high-speed ships, ocean noise pollution, and global warming remain dangerous hazards. Whales are only now beginning to recover from more than two centuries of commercial whaling which destroyed 95% of historical populations.

Like the situation in the water for whales, the situation inside the IWC is precarious. Conservation-minded countries now find themselves consistently outmanned by Norway, Iceland, and a fifty-person strong Japanese delegation flanked by a steady stream of small island states and landlocked developing countries recruited by the foreign aid to vote lockstep with Japan.

As a result, United States influence inside the IWC has waned. The Government of Japan has remained engaged and aggressive, inside and outside the IWC, in pursuit of its declared objective to hunt more whales.

Faced with this challenge, the Obama Administration has apparently decided to sound retreat. Five of the last six meetings to hammer out the final "lift-the-ban" proposal have been held on U.S. soil.

Instead of endorsing this sellout of the world's whales, the American government must work to end the savagery of commercial whaling forever. On April 16, 2008 then-candidate Barack Obama promised, "As President, I will ensure the U.S. provides leadership in enforcing wildlife protection agreements, including strengthening the international ban on commercial whaling. Allowing Japan to continue commercial whaling is unacceptable." But indeed, the proposed deal guarantees whaling for the next ten years.

For more than a decade Japan, Iceland, and Norway have worked harder to keep killing whales than our government has worked has to protect them. However, it is not too late to turn the tide. The Obama Administration must send a clear signal that it intends to end commercial whaling forever. "Change we can believe in" can then extend beyond our shores to benefit our planet's great whales.

Mr. President, please stay in the fight! Stop the sellout, and save the whales!

reply to post by Ferris.Bueller.II


I saw that blog and it's not one of my favorite, BTW.

I DO understand that people believe that the president is supporting a lifting of the ban and are trying to talk him out of supporting it. I understand that much. But I also understand that there is absolutely NOTHING that indicates that he is supporting it.

Show me SOMETHING that indicates that he is tending to agree with the IWC proposal and I will believe it. Show me his words. Not a bunch of speculation by left (or right) wing bloggers who are trying to talk him out of doing something that he's not even doing.

They will meet to vote on IWC's proposal on the 20th of June and I haven't seen ANYTHING from Obama on it. The only think I've seen is the Briefing I linked to that states the US will NOT support the current proposal.

Originally posted by mishigas
Two things wrong with this:

First, the continued belief in what Obama says.

He hasn't SAID anything! Show me what he has said!

Second, discounting information just because it came from Fox News. I won't even address that.

I didn't discount it JUST because it's FOX. I discounted it because I spent the better part of half a day researching it and found it to be BS.

Props to Benevolent for beeing the voice of reason in this and many threads here on ATS.

On topic:
Sea shepard is a terrorist organisation that endangers the life of other people on the sea, wich as a seaman myself i find completely unacceptable.

They seem to think that whales are more intelligent than other animal and base their decission that all whales should be protected on feelings rather than facts.

Endangered whale species should be protected, as should any other endangered wildlife. But the species who are not endangered should be regulated.

In Norway whales eat 2/3 as much fish as the entire fishing fleet and there are alot of them. (Not all whales eat only krill, that would be the bluewhale).
So all logic says we should regulate, so we get maximum resources of both whale and fish.


And to the fools who buy into the Paul Watson/PETA logic that whales are intelligent beeings... Well, then so are pigs wich have around 20% larger brain than whales, don't see any outcry over the pigs however (and pigs are smarter than dogs.)
I do not understand how people let their feelings controle their stand on these animals just because they are somewhat huge. I mean, I really enjoy seeing them basking around in the sea, but I also enjoy a whale steak.

I could see that if whale stocks were very high, they are still recovering from the slaughter humans put on them during the full blown whale hunting times. They still need to be protected from us. Some species of whale, we have decimated. One estimate of Blue Whales is that they are down 95% in population from estimates of pre hunting times. We almost killed off the largest animal ever to have existed due to our hunting of it.

The thought that whales are an intelligent species is very misleading. While it is true that dolphins have exceptionally large brains in proportion to their bodies, whales (at least the filter feeding whales) have brains not much bigger than our own. While that already sounds big, don't forget that these animals can, depending on the species, can grow to 110 feet long. If humans had the same brain to body ratio, we would have brains the size of a grape, or smaller.

reply to post by Ferris.Bueller.II


Wait a second.. hold on ..

This plan will SAVE millions of whales .. by making it legal to kill them, so 3 countries will stop exploiting loopholes and killing them anyways.. so now, they will just legally kill them (and assuming many other countries as well)

WTF

Didn't Obama run under the "Green" campaign .. It was the only thing I liked about him. So far he's completely botched the oil clean up .. now he wants to murder whales? And the only "green" initiative he's shown was a carbon credit ploy to tax the !%~ out of hard working Americans while doing nothing to actually protect the environment.

This guys a complete tool.

(and yes, I am a very conservative person ideologically .. I support a ban on whaling of any kind, killing of dolphins, over fishing, killing of sharks for any reason and so forth)



[edit on 6/9/2010 by Rockpuck]

reply to post by Xammu


Brain size doesn't = intelligence. Birds for instance are among the smartest animals on the planet, and have brains the size of nuts.

reply to post by Rockpuck


You must have missed my post here
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Obama hasn't supported this proposal, nor has he shown any sign that he will. This is just a FOX noise fluff piece with no foundation. They made it up.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Almost blindly believed you when I read your post.. almost thanked you for clearing up the issue..

QUESTION: I have a question for the chairman. Is there any reaction already from whaling countries, including Japan, to your proposal?

AMBASSADOR MAQUIEIRA: Well, they find the numbers too low. And contrary to what the U.S. expects, they want the numbers to go up. So what we’re doing here basically is trying to reach a situation where both whaling countries and conservationist countries are satisfied that each has obtained at least the minimum of what they want. This is, as somebody put it in one of our meetings – this is like doing a zebra. You have white stripes and you have black stripes, and the white stripes are the concessions you get and the black stripes are the concessions you give. And one would expect that at the end of the day you have equal number of stripes. But that is – what you put out is a core issue of this exercise, because whaling countries want the numbers to go up and conservationist countries want the numbers to go down. I’m taking bets on the outcome, if anybody’s interested. (Laughter.)

Just a bit more of the conversation and the Foxnews article.

Fox News was quoting Environmentalist angry at Obamas concessions in the IWC. Obama has a plan to continue enforcing the Moratorium, however, allowing 3 nations to whale, but with a set number. Also no whale products could be traded to other nations under the new treaty.

In theory, this would force these nations to police their own waters and industries, enforcing the maximum number of kills, and once the maximum number is reached they can't hunt anymore.

IMO, we shouldn't condone the hunting of any whale.. in this day and age eating whale is a luxury not a necessity, and we certainly don't need their other products like oil.

But I don't think Fox News (or maybe they did I don't know) intended to say the moratorium would be canceled, it's simply being renegotiated.

you misrepresented the facts almost as bad as Foxnews did.

MS. MEDINA: Well, I think that’s – the essence of this agreement would be recognizing that some whaling has been able to continue in the face of a moratorium. And the idea would be to cap that whaling and to get it under the IWC’s control so that it can be monitored, it can be – we can assure that we know where the whale products are going. I think some of you may be aware there was some whale meat that showed up in a sushi market in Los Angeles a few weeks ago.

AMBASSADOR MAQUIEIRA is from the IWC, He doesn't speak for the US. He's trying to sell the idea to the US.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
Fox News was quoting Environmentalist angry at Obamas concessions in the IWC.

Show me that concession. Show me where Obama made a concession to the IWC's proposal and I'll give up my position. That's what I am arguing with. I think FOX News is mistaken.

But I don't think Fox News (or maybe they did I don't know) intended to say the moratorium would be canceled, it's simply being renegotiated.

Yes they did.

The Obama administration is leading an effort within the International Whaling Commission to lift a 24-year international ban on commercial whaling for Japan, Norway and Iceland

you misrepresented the facts almost as bad as Foxnews did.

I don't think so.

MS. MEDINA: Well, I think that’s – the essence of this agreement would be recognizing that some whaling has been able to continue in the face of a moratorium. And the idea would be to cap that whaling and to get it under the IWC’s control so that it can be monitored, it can be – we can assure that we know where the whale products are going. I think some of you may be aware there was some whale meat that showed up in a sushi market in Los Angeles a few weeks ago.

Yeah? Some whaling does continue (illegally). The IWC proposes is to bring them in and cap their hunting at a lower level than the current numbers. Obama hasn't agreed with it (yet). I don't get the point here.



[edit on 6/9/2010 by Benevolent Heretic]

I still don't get the warm fuzzies from the notion that the 3 nations will adhere to the proposed guidelines, especially Japan. What is their incentive to do so? We have a weakling in office whose idea of punishment is "a strongly worded response", so who is going to enforce these new laws?

Don't waste your time and energy tracking down a worded response from Obama to make your case here. Obama's promises are "written on ice". His breaking of practically every campaign promise should have taught you that; he does what is politically expedient. His handlers will tie his head to the pendulum as he reads the teleprompters...RIGHT Teleprompter -LEFT Teleprompter - RIGHT Teleprompter.... keep his head swinging so he doesn't have to look you in the eyes as he lies lies lies...

reply to post by Ferris.Bueller.II


Can anyone name ONE THING he has done that he promised during his campaign? ONE THING? Anyone pro-Obama, give this a shot, PM me, lol. THis is sick, he needs to go be with "El Presidente" en Mexico. He won't come to AZ because he would be deported, lol. Seriously though, where is the BC?

Originally posted by AdmiralX
reply to post by Ferris.Bueller.II

 

Can anyone name ONE THING he has done that he promised during his campaign? ONE THING? Anyone pro-Obama, give this a shot, PM me, lol. THis is sick, he needs to go be with "El Presidente" en Mexico. He won't come to AZ because he would be deported, lol. Seriously though, where is the BC?

Won't come to AZ? Hell, he refused to meet with AZ's governor when she went to DC!

And believe it or not, he still has not met with the CEO of BP to discuss the tragedy happening in the Gulf. Obama is hiding under his desk, or behind Big mama's skirts...afraid to do the job he was elected to do. He is the biggest loser to ever sit in the WH.