Whale hunting to resume in Iceland's waters

reply to post by antonia


Apparently people don't understand what endangered means & thinks it okay to hunt them?

reply to post by Swills


I don't think the label even matters. We are talking about a species with it's own language. Many scientists believes whales, dolphins and porpoises are sentient beings. This is just flat-out murder. Humans are stuck in this mode of thought believing all the other animals on this planet are lower than we are and it's just not the case. The cetaceans prove humans are not the only intelligent, sentient life on this planet and we need to stop thinking it's ok to wholesale do what we want to other species. We wouldn't want someone to do that to us, so let's not do it to others.

Climbing down off my soapbox now.

reply to post by antonia

I couldn't agree more and am happy to see others view it the same way. It's their behavior, complex social structure and ...yes, amazingly, language, that makes Whales (and some others, in and out of the water) stand out as very likely being as self aware, and aware of us, as we are of them.

They even display behavior which can only be described as purely playful and dare we suggest, showing a sense of humor? All very important qualities in distinguishing a life form as sentient over, say, a mosquito or other 'critter' that exists on base instinct and lives to eat when not mating.

There are people in this world that consider cannibalism to be perfectly reasonable too.. (cough.. ahem.. they exist, I'm told)... but surely, limits are what define a society as civilized and this strikes me hard as showing no real limits at all.

I'm not sure I really see what the problem is...154 is less than 0.001% of the global population of Fin Whales... It's hardly going to make much of a difference.

It's also somewhat hypocritical of us, especially those countries who still have people hunting land mammals (looking at you, America...it's your constitutional right to own guns and kill animals for sport, apparently..), to criticise the Icelandic's or Japanese..

I couldn't care less if the animals are "sentient" - whose to say Deer, Elk, Bears, Cows, Chickens etc don't possess intelligence or language?

Originally posted by stumason
I'm not sure I really see what the problem is...154 is less than 0.001% of the global population of Fin Whales... It's hardly going to make much of a difference.

It's also somewhat hypocritical of us, especially those countries who still have people hunting land mammals (looking at you, America...it's your constitutional right to own guns and kill animals for sport, apparently..), to criticise the Icelandic's or Japanese..

I couldn't care less if the animals are "sentient" - whose to say Deer, Elk, Bears, Cows, Chickens etc don't possess intelligence or language?

So it would be ok for me to beat a child because there are other people out there that also beat kids?

These people crack me up.I mean really,out of all the available food sources on the planet,you just got to go through all the trouble to kil a whale?A freakin whale.An endangered animal at that! Idiots!

reply to post by muse7


Hunting animals for food is totally different from beating children....

Try again, this time pick a better analogy...

How is this any different from hunting Deer, or Elk or any other mammal? Is it merely sentiment because Whales are perceived to be a higher form of life? I am sure all mammals possess a certain amount of intelligence, we're all cut from the same cloth so to speak, so explain to me why it is so evil to hunt a whale but perfectly ok to blast an Elks brains out with a .50 hunting rifle?

reply to post by stumason


With respect, I don't believe your comparison holds. Pretty much, on any level. In past examples where I have taken game by hunting personally, there is a short but meaningful prayer I say over the life I just took so I and my family may gain from that loss in food. It's probably silly and stupid to people who haven't been hunting and seen what the shows on TV will probably never..ever..show for the end phase that necessarily comes, every time.

Also, I do actually feel bad, sincerely, by doing that. I have to eat though and personally don't consider Vegan to be a healthy lifestyle (not to start a debate..it's a personal thing, if it needs to be put that way).

Now, would taking a deer for the freezer of meat it supplies our household be the same as shooting a primate? Both have meat. Both are edible. America may not have them available to hunt, but that stops few who want to shoot one from going where they are. I think a balance DOES have to come in our need to live and what nature demands of that for trade off. Us or an animal? Well.. I'm sitting here, aren't I?

Do we need to hunt down and kill the most obviously intelligent and self aware of the world outside our own species though? That is the question. Are there absolutely no limits to the superiority we seem to view ourselves with? I say there absolutely are and must be. Whalers apparently feel everything non-human is unworthy of life ...if price per pound makes solid enough profit margins.

After all..this isn't Inuit hunting sustenance. It's commercial whaling for the pure motive of stocking fishing markets with an exotic choice for high profit.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I have almost no compassion, Wrabbit - even for my fellow man

If you start to bring emotion into something like hunting though, where (and how) do you define the line? Yes, you have to eat, but so do other people and neither Japan or Iceland actually have that much arable land, especially for livestock, which is part of the reason they took to the sea for food.

Provided the hunting is sustainable, I see no reason to not do it. Granted, it's not my cup of tea and I wouldn't eat it out of choice, but I will happily chow down on a pig that over 1.5 Billion people on the planet are totally against. It's all down to culture.

Once you start down the path of ruling out one animal because of "intelligence", where does it stop? Many species of birds have shown extraordinary intelligence, rivalling that of many Apes, but we would happily eat a bird without a seconds thought, but most of us would baulk at the idea of eating a monkey or Chimp, but others in the world consider them fair game.

Anyway, if they were so damned intelligent and some do think they are as clever as people, why don't they attack or avoid the Whaling ships? That's what a Human would do..... They can't be that clever....

Whale beef is very tasty... yummy...

Do you guys just pretend to be ignorant, or are you just very lazy?

There are in fact SEVERAL different species of whale!!!!!!

The whale that is hunted, is the one that there are plenty of!!! Go hug a tree.

If any of you eat any kind of meat or animal product or use any type of animal product you need to have a nice warm glass of be quiet.

Originally posted by muse7

Originally posted by stumason
I'm not sure I really see what the problem is...154 is less than 0.001% of the global population of Fin Whales... It's hardly going to make much of a difference.

It's also somewhat hypocritical of us, especially those countries who still have people hunting land mammals (looking at you, America...it's your constitutional right to own guns and kill animals for sport, apparently..), to criticise the Icelandic's or Japanese..

I couldn't care less if the animals are "sentient" - whose to say Deer, Elk, Bears, Cows, Chickens etc don't possess intelligence or language?

So it would be ok for me to beat a child because there are other people out there that also beat kids?

go beat a kid and try to use the whaling defense to get you out of trouble.

reply to post by stumason


They do posses intelligence and I don't eat them.

Have a nice day.

we already lost the black rhinos, it's like they're racing who's going to make species become extinct. they never learn!

154? they want to clean up the oceans from whales? and they claim to be intelligent human beings

The old Mosaic rules regarding flesh we could eat seem to effectively rule out the consumption of not only unclean (contaminated by their own diet) animals, but also effectively excludes animals of near human intelligence or "sentience" (whales, dolphins, horses, apes, etc).. There is also an admonition not to cook a lamb in its mothers milk. It seems at least one of the OT gods also thought along the lines of this thread.

We in the West tend to not eat the flesh of carnivores---but then we have plenty of land to grow herbivores and crops.

I think a good argument could be made that the flesh of some carnivores should be eaten if it can be prepared safely. Just not sure exactly which canrivores/omnivores should be included. But perhaps "protein/fat provider" may be the highest possible job decription for many of what some describe as the greatly over-abundant "useless eaters"'? Most dogs and whales would probably be protected in such a hypothetical world.

reply to post by stumason


I would hope every hunter has some emotion invested in the activity. There is a fine line between taking an animal for meat in as clean a way as humanly possible ..literally.. and letting it suffer with cruel indifference (at best for motive). That line usually comes only in that emotion felt by the hunter for a sense of wrong to making the necessary process any worse than it has to be.

Even most animal rights groups I've seen, don't suggest all meat and livestock be banned. That all chicken egg production be banned. It's the emotion we, as humans, feel when something is unnecessarily vicious, cruel or just not needed to the purpose at hand.

As far as Whales and their response? I guess it would come as a shock...Moby Dick, as one of the true classics in literature ....is loosely based on 100% real events.

November 20th: A 160,000 Pound Sperm Whale Destroys the Whaling Ship, Essex, an Event that Partly Inspired the Novel Moby Dick

The story of the destruction of the Essex is one of the better known, for obvious reasons. It's far from the only example of these magnificent creatures deciding they weren't going to be anyone's target practice while they taught the pesky humans just who's world each was in at the moment.

i see nothing wrong with this, if they want to kill whales let them, if i want to shoot or club a seal to eat let me, but if their numbers are getting low they should just wait untill the numbers come up again. 150 or so aint that much.

Hell, yeah! One of my goals since childhood was to kill the # out of a whale! I may have to make me a trip to Iceland!

No wonder why they continuously choose the route of "beaching themselves."