With Sales Down, Whale Meat Flogged As Source of Strength 311
beaverdownunder writes "From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: 'Japan's peak whaling body has launched a new campaign to promote whale meat as a nutritious food that enhances physical strength and reduces fatigue. With about 5,000 tonnes of whale meat sitting unwanted in freezers around Japan, the country's Institute for Cetacean Research has decided to launch a new campaign to promote the by-product of its so-called scientific whaling program. Once popular in school lunches, younger generations of Japanese rarely, if ever, eat whale."
so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Insightful)
When extinction became an issue civilised nations agreed to stop whaling.
The exceptions are for indigenous populations like those living in polar regions and some scientific work.
As a result in the short term whales are no longer threatened by extinction but in the long term they still face threats.
Japan's excuse would be laughable if it weren't for the fact when all previous whaling nations would do the same the problem of extinction would surface again.
Where a great nation shows child-like behaviour.
Re:What's next? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is about the stupidest, most idiotic comparison I've ever seen. Congratulations, you fail at the internet.
Re:May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls (Score:5, Insightful)
They claim they want to prove that whales are numerous enough to again allow for commercial whaling, and that such proof would be impossible to gather without research. Assuming you see whales as just another resource, like fish, this is a reasonable stance to take.
The underlying issue is that many countries want a total moratorium on whaling for cultural reasons. Japan and several other countries with long culture of whaling view this as insanity and see whales as the same as any other nautical resource. In a way they are right, many of modern fish stocks are in much worse condition then many of the whale stocks, but because many of the countries that want total moratorium have severe vested interests in fishing but no whaling, they deflect attention from painful decisions that need to be taken in regards to fishery policy by focusing attention on whaling which is essentially free for them - as they do not have a whaling fleet or culture of whaling.
Sorry, you're wrong here. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, not about the historicity, but about how this is going on ahead because "Japan is pretty tired of the west telling it what to do.".
If that were the case, then the whaling industry would not have 5000 tons sitting unwanted and have to start a completely bogus claim about the meat they can't sell, not even as pet food.
Japan themselves have decided that they really don't need to eat whale meat. The consumption is way down. However, the industry making money off this don't want to find out they're buggy whip manufacturers and are refusing to let the rest of Japan tell them they're not wanted any more (or at most, wanted at a very much reduced level).
This is about greedy corporations in Japan, not about Greedy Western Imperialism.
Ok, so if no-one is eating it, why bother with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
If people aren't interested in eating whale meat, why not just give up on the hunt and stop killing the things?
Continuing to produce a product no-one is interested in (and that large swathes of the rest of the world would rather you didn't produce) seems stupid to me, especially if they have to divert money from tsunami relief to pay for it.
Is it because of lobbying by the whale fishermen? Concerns from the government about where all the people involved in the industry are gonna get jobs if the industry is shut down? National pride? (i.e. "we have been catching whales for decades, why should we stop now just because someone else tells us to") Something else?
Re:May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls (Score:5, Insightful)
What part of "sitting unwanted in freezers" and "killing whales" is part of your moronic idea of popluation study? Oh! The Bald Eagle is Endangered.... Guess What's For Dinner! Get bent you idiot.
Just an FYI: not all whale species are endangered. You can see some examples here (prepare to give your L type cones [wikipedia.org] a function test):
Humpback whale [iucnredlist.org], Minke whale [iucnredlist.org], Southern Right whale [iucnredlist.org].
As you can see, those species are listed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN, which happens to be the same category that the sewer rat [wikipedia.org] receives. There have been allegations that endangered whales have been killed by the Japanese whaling industry, which is obviously reprehensible.
BTW, there have also been allegations that the "Least Concern" bald eagle [iucnredlist.org] (oh, also FYI: it's no longer endangered) have been killed by the Amish chicken farming industry. [lancasteronline.com]
I don't really have an opinion on the ethics of whaling "least concern" whale species. I consider that concept similar to the beef industry. Why is killing and eating cow acceptable if killing and eating non-threatened whale species is not? Of course, you will notice that the ethical consideration is orthogonal to the legality consideration.
I am vegetarian, so I am not faced with cognitive dissonance about the situation, but I don't care which animals that other people eat if it isn't actively promoting extinction of a species.
Re:Sorry, you're wrong here. (Score:4, Insightful)
The "corporations" are not greedy. Saying they are is like saying guns kill people. The PEOPLE that run the corporations are responsible. Furthermore, their actions are entirely legal under Japanese law - laws set by their elected government.
It's really no different that that old "beef, it's what's for dinner!" ad campaign. Running an ad campaign is simply an effort to sell their product and maintain cash flow so everyone working for the corporation still has a job. The part you seem not to grasp is that if they go broke, they can't simply tax rich people for more money like a socialist government. Run out of money and everyone is out of a job.
In the end, if the Japanese decide they don't like whaling it they can vote for representatives who can change the laws. In the meantime it's simple supply and demand. Economic forces are what will ultimately stop whaling, not a bunch of whining hippies.
Re:May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls (Score:3, Insightful)
In their defense, remember that the whales did drop those nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Re:Sorry, you're wrong here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Simplistic view, sorry. In most corporations and in 1005 of large and very large ones, the corporate charters, the whole structure of corporate governance, from the board down to the lowliest HR intern, everything is geared towards the goals of corporate survival, growth and profit (in this order of priorities). To say that any one individual can do more than nuance the actions of such organizations is to miss the entire point of their existence.
Re:May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls (Score:0, Insightful)
Whaling for food is not illegal as the IWC does not have any legal grounds to stop whaling. Japan does not even need to belong to the IWC, but it wants do the right thing by communicating with other countries. The illegal groups are such as the pirates like Sea Shepherd who disregarded the international law.
Re:May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls (Score:3, Insightful)
the difference would be cows are currently maintained as a sustainable managed food source. whales are not; whales would only be able to provide food on the scale of cows for a year or two before being going from LC to EX.
If feeding an animal a wholly inappropriate diet petroleum based diet (corn and dead chickens), attempting to mitigate the damage resulting from such an unnatural diet via the continual use of sub-therapeutic anti-biotics, and extensive ecological damage due to highly concentrated and toxic manure, then, yeah sustainably managed food source.
** Applies to factory meat only, grass-fed and finished is a whole different story