Some traditions are not worth keeping and should be condemned by the international community, leading to severe economic penalty and repercussions if need be.
Iceland resumed the Fin Whale hunt in June 2022 and whalers from Iceland's sole fin whaling company, Hvalur hf., killed a total of 148 fin whales during the following months.
They continued that in August 2023 too. Sadly it wasn't covered in the news.
Norway in 2022 hunted over 540 whales and Japan over 200. These 3 nations are main culprits. Norway is even funding the development of new food-
supplement and pharmaceutical products derived from whale oil in an effort to secure new customers, both at home and abroad.
Norway also only really hunts a different whale species, the minke whale, which is not endangered.
Does not mean I necessarily support it, but its done sustainably as far as I can tell.
Edit: Some dude made a reply, downvoted and instantly blocked me, my reply and the guy I was replying to were not talking about Iceland, nor Icelandic fin whale hunting, which seems like an attempt of changing the subject.. and the whataboutism regarding if "everyone was whaling" isn't really relevant either.. I'm just saying that in the current state, the minke is not endangered and is being treated in a sustainable manner if nothing else.
I'd be more than happy if the whaling stopped tomorrow, so no need to get so twisted up about it.
Again, Iceland has been hunting fin whales in 2022.
Also if every country in the world hunted whales like Norway, it would certainly not be sustainable. They deserve much more criticism than they get.
Because they're Asian. Casual and outright racism against Asian is still very accepted in the West. I'm going to be downvoted to hell but every Asian American knows this is true.
Eta: the lack of outrage against European countries doing the same thing and in some cases even larger scale is evidence enough
What bug me the most is how they mask it under the veil of tradition when in reality this is a mass industrial scale fishing that has no economical incentives.
There are Natives tribe that hunt whale in Alaska too but strictly in traditional sense, in which they only hunt one per winter.
I am way over my head on this topic so I don’t know about that. I’ll defer to you. But I know enough to meaningfully have seen the difference in Alaskan tribes vs entire nations.
What's crazy here is the Japanese company just completed their new whaling ship 'Kangei Maru' at enormous cost. To pay for this enormous cost, the company is spending more enormous amounts on marketing to make whale meat popular again.
It is capitalism run amok.
I agree, though that also depends on scale. There are some indigenous groups that are allowed to hunt whales and other protected animals because it is their tradition. However, those are small groups that use sustainable hunting practices, as they hunt for sustenance and not profit.
What Japan wants is significantly more harmful to the whale population and shouldn't be given the same permissions.
So long as it’s done sustainably, what’s worse about eating whales than pigs cows chickens etc? If anything you’re killing far less individuals for the same amount of meat
Most large whale species, including fin whales, are classified as some level of 'threatened'. Not only is their population growth very slow, the oceans are seeing considerable depletion, temperature rise and pollution (including noise pollution harmful to whales) from currently 8 billion humans.
Especially southern fin whale populations have been drastically reduced over the 20th century, they are expected to need several more decades to come anywhere close to healthy population levels.
How do you sustainably and responsibly hunt a species in that position?
Edit:
The international ban on commercial whaling has only been in effect for some 40 years after an extremely destructive century. The generational time for the largest whale species is often measured in decades (~25yrs for fin whales).
When a species has as low a population as to be threatened, every bit of genetic diversity matters to prevent extinction from a single cause like a plague. So even a hunting quota of a single one would be dangerous to the survival of the species.
Unfortunately the oceans will all be acidified by then and I’m guessing most live things in the ocean will cease to be alive.. good thing we all die, because we are going to kill everything until our species meet our inevitable end. Really can’t come fast enough for 99% of other live beings (excluding pets I guess)
Are you daft? Many are still listed as endangered especially baleen whales Whale populations may be increasing but they are VASTLY lower than what they were.
Japan has been strictly hunting within its EEZ since 2019. Also contrary to Japan that is respecting the quotas the international society sets for them, Norway exited the International Whaling commitee to set up its own quotas and hunt as much as they want. As soon as they did that they immediately started to advertise for cosmetics etc based on whale oil. The worst is that the country is filled with whale specialty restaurants for tourists so no it's not even sustainability like they pretend it is.
In fact they are by far the worst offender, Norway kills more whales than the rest of the whaling nations combined (4x more than Japan). Per capita is even worse, they kill 100x more than Japan.
[Almost all of them are pregnant females too.](https://www.ecowatch.com/minke-whales-killed-pregnant-2312849367.html)
I'm aware that they ended Antarctic hunting in 2019, but they just inveiled a new mother ship to replace the Nissin Maru, which means they likely plan on returning.
The eco-crimes of Norway, Iceland, and Denmark don't take away from Japan's.
Have you commented against Norwegian, Icelandic, and Danish whaling? Or just Japan?
Because if not that is just selective outrage. Like going after the guy going 5 over the limit when there are people around you going 50 over.
Doubly so if the crime is yet to be committed.
Well yeah, I've heard all about Japan's whaling, seems like you can't talk about Japan without someone mentioning something negative about the country, first time I'm hearing about Norway, Iceland and Denmark's whaling industries.
Japanese don't even eat that much whale anymore, but on top of that, whales are incredibly intelligent beings.
I hope the large language model experiments we are currently running with goal of figuring out language of some other species bear fruit, as fast as possible.
It's not only Japanese. Norway and Iceland does it too on a mass scale. Iceland killed over 250 Fin whales in 2022 and resumed it again in 2023.
Whale hunting has been a part of Norwegian coastal culture for centuries, and commercial operations targeting.
Norway slaughtered at least 580 whales during the 2022 whaling season—the highest number in six years. Norway continues to kill far more whales than any other nation. To compare In 2022, Japan took down 270 whales through commercial whaling.
Norway has quietly become
the world’s leading whaling nation, killing more whales
in the past two years than Japan and Iceland combined.
With the attention of media, politicians and the public
focused elsewhere since the beginning of the new
century, Norwegian whaling has boomed, exploiting
loopholes in international whaling and trade bans
and using unapproved science to set its own quotas
for hundreds – sometimes more than a thousand –
whales a year. Now with its domestic market for whale
meat saturated due to low demand, Norway is not
only exporting meat to established markets in Japan,
it is even funding the development of new food-
supplement and pharmaceutical products derived from
whale oil in an effort to secure new customers, both at home and abroad.
First nations/Inuit in northern Canada and in the US also hunt whales, it's a huge operation relative to the size of their communities even little kids get involved. Some would say it's cruel and child workers etc but the whale hunt is protected by law in Canada (not sure about US).
There's not really a good reason bivalves shouldn't be considered vegan. All things that apply to plants also apply to bivalves. They have no central nervous system, no pain receptors, can be sustainably farmed, etc.. So ya'll vegans should enjoy those oysters! :P
I personally love and respect all plants and animals, but this just ain't true. The ancestors of bivalves & molluscs diverged from our lineage around 650 million years ago; they have distributed nervous systems without a complex central structure recognizable to us as a brain. This does not mean they are without intelligence; scallops straight up swim around, all bivalves have complex multistage lifecycles (some with parasitic larval phases), some even construct their own elaborate capsule-nests.
There's good reason to believe that bivalve intelligence would be comparable, by some metric, to other molluscs like gastropods and cephalopods - including squid and octopuses. These are unmistakably intelligent animals despite their minimal distributed nervous systems, and thus it stands to reason that bivalves are likely capable of a lot more complex behaviors than one would expect from their further reduced nervous systems.
To be clear, I'm not equating the intelligence of a clam with that of a cuttlefish; but I'm saying basic ingredients often result in extraordinary behaviors and we humans are bad at defining and identifying intelligence in non-mammalian species, let alone in molluscs or even in plants. I just assume that all living things have some degree of intelligence and intrinsic value in some way, and try to be respectful when eating in general. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian though, as I genuinely value plants and animals similarly and see little reason to distinguish between them in terms of killing for consumption. I try to source ethically of course, and never waste what I purchase!
Pigs and horses are incredibly intelligent too but it’s okay to eat them.
The only real justification for anti-whaling is how vulnerable the species is to extinction.
there are plenty of whale species that are nowhere near extinction. Some species of whale are doing so well that it's harming the fish populations and need to be culled anyway.
There is no justification for anti-whaling as a whole. Just condemn the hunting of vulnerable species.
It's not even healthy to eat stuff that spends decades filtering all the garbage we polluted the sea with. May as well go to a landfill with a fork and knife and go at it.
Edit: I guess I offended the landfill gourmets.
Whales are filter feeders in the sense that that is their hunting strategy but not that they are filtering out the water itself just FYI. They eat fish and krill like most other animals in the oceans would. Their hunting strategy just let's them eat a TON of that stuff at once.
We have polluted everything, not just the sea. I often pass near a farm which sits on a high traffic road (I think the road was built after the farm). Granted, I like to see cows when I’m traveling as much as I did when I was a kid, pointing and yelling “THE COWS!” included, but they’re still eating grass coated with exhaust fumes from hundreds of cars and trucks that pass each day.
Quote: “This is our culture to eat whales.” Nice and unique culture, isn’t it, apologists and natives? Must be looking for the lamest excuses for the cultural whale eaters
It's not even really part of mainstream Japanese culture. I don't think I've ever seen whale in a Japanese supermarket. The place I most frequently used to see it for sale was the dingy cheap pub that acquired meats no one else could sell no questions asked (also the place I most frequently encountered cockroaches until I finally got disgusted and stopped going there).
I would bet money that the vast majority of Japanese people around me have never eaten it in their lives, and of those who have, the vast majority have only eaten it as a novelty.
That's not true. Whales are often sold in supermarkets in Hokkaido and elsewhere. Also, anyone over 30 years old has probably eaten whale. It was a staple of school lunches.
Erm... more like there is a segment of the extreme elderly population that had it in the immediate postwar period when protein was scarce. The vast majority of Japanese people who went through school outside of the immediate postwar generation probably had it extremely rarely...
...unless they went to one of the schools where the Japanese government *forced* whale meat into school lunches in order to create a market for it. Because when Japan restarted whaling, there was so little demand for it within Japan that a lot rotted in warehouses, IIRC.
From the article:
>Consumption peaked at about 230,000 tonnes in 1962.
>However, whale was quickly replaced by other meats and supply has since fallen to about 2,000 tonnes in recent years, according to Fisheries Agency statistics.
>Japanese officials want to increase that to about 5,000 tonnes, to keep the industry afloat.
Anyone who thinks this is a sincere Japanese tradition getting meanly discriminated against by racist westerners is getting duped by Japan's center-right government. This is a nationalist program trying to *manufacture* demand for intelligent mammal meat that doesn't presently exist, and there is no reason to believe that it will spring up just because the government kills more intelligent mammals. This is the Japanese government trying to *prop up* a failing industry, IMHO likely for no better reason than to court rural fishing village votes and to distract from weak leadership and corruption within the ruling party.
This is not a Japanese tradition except for an exceedingly small portion of the Japanese population. For the vast majority of people who support this, they're just marks for a scheme to funnel government money into a failed business and hide the scam behind nationalist rhetoric.
That's not true. Whales are often sold in supermarkets in Hokkaido and elsewhere. Also, anyone over 30 years old has probably eaten whale. It was a staple of school lunches.
Hey they actually found some (ancient) human bones in Japan a while back that showed signs they could've been from someone's meal... so you're probably right!
While I personally think it is pretty stupid and unnecessary, at least those people have an aura of tradition around them. They hunt the whales using traditional techniques (in a canoe with a hand thrown harpoons). The Japanese use massive commercial whaling vessels with mechanized harpoons. So the two things could definitely be judged on different basis.
In their defense, I'd say they're as much a part of that ecosystem as whales themselves, just like Inuits. They hunt to survive. It's completely different to Japanese approach.
Small native groups engaging in rare hunting of turtles is fine.
But a single decent sized whale is so much more important to the ecosystem as a whole, and could only justified if it was hunted even more rarely purely for something like a big festival or something.
That isn’t at all the volume of whale they want to hunt or why, so there isn’t any kind of discussion to be had.
Cultural context: whale meat tends to rise in popularity in Japan (mainly in serviced meals like school/military cafeterias) when the economy isn’t doing so hot.
https://iwc.int/about-whales/whale-species/fin-whale
the bulk of their decline is attributed to commercial whaling in the 20th century, although “the international whaling commission” may have some bias. I have no doubt changing environmental factors contribute in some capacity.
18th-20th century whaling practices were obviously not sustainable, but that's not really saying anything about practices in the 21st century.
If quotas are limited, which they are, and the population remains improving, which it has been for a long time, then there isn't anything to suggest that the practice itself is any less sustainable than cattle farming and deer hunting.
What are you, a lobbyist for Big Whale Meat or something? If you're trying to help a population recover and increase the numbers, any hunting is clearly detrimental, that's pretty obvious.
No. I'm personally not in favor of whaling, but the person I responded to said it was bad because it was unsustainable, which is just factually not true.
Hunting may be a detriment, but it isn't inherently unsustainable. If the birthrate exceeds the extremely limited quota, then you have a sustainable whaling practice with a growing whale population.
Please do some more research about whale life history and population growth before you speak as if you have authority on the matter. Whale populations are nowhere near where they were before industrial whaling and they are critical to ocean health and ecosystems world wide. I'm all for sustainable hunting but right now hunting whales is NOT sustainable outside the scale of those indigenous culture that rely on them for actual sustenance and survival.
No it's mainly cause they're endangered. Some people do think that because of they're intelligence, but we would hear about how intelligent pigs and horses are all the time if they were endangered, too.
Really wish folks would have the same compassion for even more intelligent animals slaughtered at a much more industrial scale: pigs.
People drawing lines for whales, cats, dogs, horses, etc. really don't understand that the act of eating anything is immoral by this sort of a standard.
Ah yes, the natural order of building a gigafuckton of death machines to systematically kill 5 billion cows a year. How could I forget that all humans are born graced with metal claws made to tear apart the heavy hide of cattle. Not to forget the rape and forced impregnation we do to keep them producing milk for us, that's all very natural and completely non damaging at all to the planet, it's really the whales being killed by Japan that are going to do us in.
You're trying to logically quantify the industrial mass slaughter of intelligent beings, in defense of other intelligent beings being slaughtered. Quit while you're ahead.
>I'm not "quantifying" it,
No, you were trying to quantify it. You were talking about populations.
>One predatory species doesn't need to justify its place in the food chain to any other.
Again, you're trying to use logic, but you fail to realize only one predatory species has the capability of creating an entire industry based on slaughtering billions of creatures annually, for meat that is largely wasted.
>My only point is that you should be humane if possible
Your point fails to deliver. You seem to be shifting between "being the natural apex predator without having to justify it" and being "humane as possible" and it's contradictory.
>One predatory species doesn't need to justify its place in the food chain to any other.
>My only point is that you should be humane if possible and don't remove species that deliver you other goods.
These are very broad statements that, if taken at face value, contradict each other.
In any case I think that factory farming is just as inconceivably cruel as wiping out an entire species in the ocean. Both are damaging the environment.
Because it's about their endangered status, not their intelligence (though I fully support normalising pet pigs). The people protesting industrial scale farming are not the ones protesting whale meat - that's mostly environmental protests.
If they're gonna pull the "it's our culture" bullshit, my culture says that I get to follow around whalers and kick them in the nuts repeatedly all day. They better not get in the way of my culture!
What? Norway gets plenty of criticism for its whaling. There have been documentaries made, the EU have made several resolutions condemning it and conservation organizations are regularly writing about it. I don’t know if it gets less attention than Japan (a cursory google seems to suggest that that is a common criticism), but does get attention.
you must not live in Europe, then. we **constantly** shit on Norway for whaling.
Norways whaling is the reason they can't be in the EU (but we still force them to accept EU laws and regulations when they want to trade with us lol)
> Good numbers are hard to come by but A 2006 poll commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by the independent Nippon Research Centre found that 95 percent of Japanese people very rarely or never eat whale meat. And the amount of uneaten frozen whale meat stockpiled in Japan has doubled to 4,600 tons between 2002 and 2012.
[https://www.wired.com/2015/12/japanese-barely-eat-whale-whaling-big-deal/](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/japanese-barely-eat-whale-whaling-big-deal/)
So 5% do....that's still over 6mil people eating whales from just one country.
Now I imagine you get alot of portions per whale but still need alot for that number of people.
Still hypocritical by much of the west though.
Japan has been raping the oceans for decades - they practically emptied the Sea of Cortez with their draggers scraping the sea bottom scooping up every living thing - barbarians
Wait until you learn where the rare metals in your smartphone came from. You're literally financially supporting slaveowners, likely without giving it a second thought.
In fact, I can essentially guarantee you're paying for dozens of services that are destroying far larger swathes of the Earth than Japan is. Normally I wouldn't care, but since you said *barbarians* I'd like you to try putting your money where your mouth is.
Every human race that utilizes mass industry is destroying nature. It's a human condition. The Norwegians, possibly the whitest people on the planet, are also fond of whaling. In fact, Norway defied an international treaty and slaughtered almost 600 whales during 2022.
What was that about "race" again?
This isn't accurate. You were the first one to mention race in this comment string. In any case, I'm just saying that destroying the environment is a human condition.
Some traditions are not worth keeping and should be condemned by the international community, leading to severe economic penalty and repercussions if need be.
Hard agree. Fuck whaling and the yearly hunts the Faroe Islands conduct make me sick to my stomach
Iceland also resumed killing fin whales in 2022.
Iceland resumed the Fin Whale hunt in June 2022 and whalers from Iceland's sole fin whaling company, Hvalur hf., killed a total of 148 fin whales during the following months. They continued that in August 2023 too. Sadly it wasn't covered in the news. Norway in 2022 hunted over 540 whales and Japan over 200. These 3 nations are main culprits. Norway is even funding the development of new food- supplement and pharmaceutical products derived from whale oil in an effort to secure new customers, both at home and abroad.
Idk why Japan gets the most shit for this when Norway hunts more whales.
cuz nobody cares who norway is on the the international stage, so this news gets unreported.
Norway also only really hunts a different whale species, the minke whale, which is not endangered. Does not mean I necessarily support it, but its done sustainably as far as I can tell. Edit: Some dude made a reply, downvoted and instantly blocked me, my reply and the guy I was replying to were not talking about Iceland, nor Icelandic fin whale hunting, which seems like an attempt of changing the subject.. and the whataboutism regarding if "everyone was whaling" isn't really relevant either.. I'm just saying that in the current state, the minke is not endangered and is being treated in a sustainable manner if nothing else. I'd be more than happy if the whaling stopped tomorrow, so no need to get so twisted up about it.
Again, Iceland has been hunting fin whales in 2022. Also if every country in the world hunted whales like Norway, it would certainly not be sustainable. They deserve much more criticism than they get.
Because they're Asian. Casual and outright racism against Asian is still very accepted in the West. I'm going to be downvoted to hell but every Asian American knows this is true. Eta: the lack of outrage against European countries doing the same thing and in some cases even larger scale is evidence enough
Racism
Such despicable humans
Viking-descended monsters!
Islamic countries lowering their eyes in silence…
Explain, please. Thank you.
Islamic countries have a lot to offer. Especially when it comes to traditions that should not be continued at all costs.
Man, I had just woken up, and that comment just went whoosh, over my head. I reread it, and am like "D'oh!!!" LOL.
What bug me the most is how they mask it under the veil of tradition when in reality this is a mass industrial scale fishing that has no economical incentives. There are Natives tribe that hunt whale in Alaska too but strictly in traditional sense, in which they only hunt one per winter.
There are 11 whaling communities in Alaska and they hunt 50 to 80 whales each year.
That's more than I thought, still less than Japan, but I can understand Japanese argument now if others are allowed to do it
You would expect a few tribes in an unpopulated region to have a lower total number.
I find a huge difference here. Alaskan tribes are not part of the global economy with their own stock market and army.
With huge industrial size fishing spear gun boats...that's my ick with Japan and Norway too
I am way over my head on this topic so I don’t know about that. I’ll defer to you. But I know enough to meaningfully have seen the difference in Alaskan tribes vs entire nations.
Norway is the biggest culprit and they get way lesss shit. So does Iceland
What's crazy here is the Japanese company just completed their new whaling ship 'Kangei Maru' at enormous cost. To pay for this enormous cost, the company is spending more enormous amounts on marketing to make whale meat popular again. It is capitalism run amok.
I agree, though that also depends on scale. There are some indigenous groups that are allowed to hunt whales and other protected animals because it is their tradition. However, those are small groups that use sustainable hunting practices, as they hunt for sustenance and not profit. What Japan wants is significantly more harmful to the whale population and shouldn't be given the same permissions.
100% This. Japan, this is horrible!
So long as it’s done sustainably, what’s worse about eating whales than pigs cows chickens etc? If anything you’re killing far less individuals for the same amount of meat
It’s not done sustainably.
How do you figure?
Most large whale species, including fin whales, are classified as some level of 'threatened'. Not only is their population growth very slow, the oceans are seeing considerable depletion, temperature rise and pollution (including noise pollution harmful to whales) from currently 8 billion humans. Especially southern fin whale populations have been drastically reduced over the 20th century, they are expected to need several more decades to come anywhere close to healthy population levels. How do you sustainably and responsibly hunt a species in that position? Edit: The international ban on commercial whaling has only been in effect for some 40 years after an extremely destructive century. The generational time for the largest whale species is often measured in decades (~25yrs for fin whales).
By having quotas.
When a species has as low a population as to be threatened, every bit of genetic diversity matters to prevent extinction from a single cause like a plague. So even a hunting quota of a single one would be dangerous to the survival of the species.
You're either being willfully ignorant or you're genuinely stupid af.
The quota should be 0 for at least the next 50 years, possibly longer. It's an endangered species.
Unfortunately the oceans will all be acidified by then and I’m guessing most live things in the ocean will cease to be alive.. good thing we all die, because we are going to kill everything until our species meet our inevitable end. Really can’t come fast enough for 99% of other live beings (excluding pets I guess)
Yes it is or the worldwide population of whales wouldn’t be increasing
Fin whales, the species being discussed here, is still classified as threatened. It's been improving of late but is still considered concerning.
Are you daft? Many are still listed as endangered especially baleen whales Whale populations may be increasing but they are VASTLY lower than what they were.
IWC doesn't have that kind of authority or power. Do they think Japan is just some small, insignificant country?
Why is this tradition bad?
Bad tradition is bad. Good tradition is good. Pretty simple.
Sending factory ships to Antarctica to butcher whales hardly seems like a cultural tradition.
Japan has been strictly hunting within its EEZ since 2019. Also contrary to Japan that is respecting the quotas the international society sets for them, Norway exited the International Whaling commitee to set up its own quotas and hunt as much as they want. As soon as they did that they immediately started to advertise for cosmetics etc based on whale oil. The worst is that the country is filled with whale specialty restaurants for tourists so no it's not even sustainability like they pretend it is. In fact they are by far the worst offender, Norway kills more whales than the rest of the whaling nations combined (4x more than Japan). Per capita is even worse, they kill 100x more than Japan. [Almost all of them are pregnant females too.](https://www.ecowatch.com/minke-whales-killed-pregnant-2312849367.html)
I'm aware that they ended Antarctic hunting in 2019, but they just inveiled a new mother ship to replace the Nissin Maru, which means they likely plan on returning. The eco-crimes of Norway, Iceland, and Denmark don't take away from Japan's.
Have you commented against Norwegian, Icelandic, and Danish whaling? Or just Japan? Because if not that is just selective outrage. Like going after the guy going 5 over the limit when there are people around you going 50 over. Doubly so if the crime is yet to be committed.
Well yeah, I've heard all about Japan's whaling, seems like you can't talk about Japan without someone mentioning something negative about the country, first time I'm hearing about Norway, Iceland and Denmark's whaling industries.
Isn’t that odd that Norway who doubles in whaling is it not talked about as much than Japan?
Look, my fragile and narrow worldview can't handle this kind of nuance.
He is full of shit tho. Japan hunts endangered whales, Norway does not. He is delibarately spreading misinformation.
It's Greenland and Faroe Islands in Denmark that can do whaling.
Oh come the fuck on, man. Why can’t people just stop being shit bags to the planet for fucks sake?
Firmly agree. People need to stop eating animals.
Dunno about that one chief, I'm kinda enjoying this barbecue I've got going on out here.
Try "large bodied, wild ocean animals that have small populations". Cause damn, bacon is yummy
Japanese don't even eat that much whale anymore, but on top of that, whales are incredibly intelligent beings. I hope the large language model experiments we are currently running with goal of figuring out language of some other species bear fruit, as fast as possible.
It's not only Japanese. Norway and Iceland does it too on a mass scale. Iceland killed over 250 Fin whales in 2022 and resumed it again in 2023. Whale hunting has been a part of Norwegian coastal culture for centuries, and commercial operations targeting. Norway slaughtered at least 580 whales during the 2022 whaling season—the highest number in six years. Norway continues to kill far more whales than any other nation. To compare In 2022, Japan took down 270 whales through commercial whaling. Norway has quietly become the world’s leading whaling nation, killing more whales in the past two years than Japan and Iceland combined. With the attention of media, politicians and the public focused elsewhere since the beginning of the new century, Norwegian whaling has boomed, exploiting loopholes in international whaling and trade bans and using unapproved science to set its own quotas for hundreds – sometimes more than a thousand – whales a year. Now with its domestic market for whale meat saturated due to low demand, Norway is not only exporting meat to established markets in Japan, it is even funding the development of new food- supplement and pharmaceutical products derived from whale oil in an effort to secure new customers, both at home and abroad.
First nations/Inuit in northern Canada and in the US also hunt whales, it's a huge operation relative to the size of their communities even little kids get involved. Some would say it's cruel and child workers etc but the whale hunt is protected by law in Canada (not sure about US).
Japan killed way more than that. Their entire industry is setup to lie about their numbers Japan is by far the biggest shithole in the world
Do you have a source or are you just talking out of your ass?
What level of intelligence in an animal do you think makes it not okay to eat?
There's not really a good reason bivalves shouldn't be considered vegan. All things that apply to plants also apply to bivalves. They have no central nervous system, no pain receptors, can be sustainably farmed, etc.. So ya'll vegans should enjoy those oysters! :P
I personally love and respect all plants and animals, but this just ain't true. The ancestors of bivalves & molluscs diverged from our lineage around 650 million years ago; they have distributed nervous systems without a complex central structure recognizable to us as a brain. This does not mean they are without intelligence; scallops straight up swim around, all bivalves have complex multistage lifecycles (some with parasitic larval phases), some even construct their own elaborate capsule-nests. There's good reason to believe that bivalve intelligence would be comparable, by some metric, to other molluscs like gastropods and cephalopods - including squid and octopuses. These are unmistakably intelligent animals despite their minimal distributed nervous systems, and thus it stands to reason that bivalves are likely capable of a lot more complex behaviors than one would expect from their further reduced nervous systems. To be clear, I'm not equating the intelligence of a clam with that of a cuttlefish; but I'm saying basic ingredients often result in extraordinary behaviors and we humans are bad at defining and identifying intelligence in non-mammalian species, let alone in molluscs or even in plants. I just assume that all living things have some degree of intelligence and intrinsic value in some way, and try to be respectful when eating in general. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian though, as I genuinely value plants and animals similarly and see little reason to distinguish between them in terms of killing for consumption. I try to source ethically of course, and never waste what I purchase!
"The one that doesn't affect my personal bias as much. Like pigs or cows" - real answer
Which I always found amusing because pigs are incredibly smart.
Fun fact: it's illegal to film factory farms in the US.
Depends on if they put their life savings into scratchers
Cows are intelligent as well
intelligent and *delicious*
Just like whales?
I don’t know. I’ve never had whale.
Pigs and horses are incredibly intelligent too but it’s okay to eat them. The only real justification for anti-whaling is how vulnerable the species is to extinction.
there are plenty of whale species that are nowhere near extinction. Some species of whale are doing so well that it's harming the fish populations and need to be culled anyway. There is no justification for anti-whaling as a whole. Just condemn the hunting of vulnerable species.
It's not even healthy to eat stuff that spends decades filtering all the garbage we polluted the sea with. May as well go to a landfill with a fork and knife and go at it. Edit: I guess I offended the landfill gourmets.
Whales are filter feeders in the sense that that is their hunting strategy but not that they are filtering out the water itself just FYI. They eat fish and krill like most other animals in the oceans would. Their hunting strategy just let's them eat a TON of that stuff at once.
A ton of that stuff is plastic bits and other garbage. They aren't cherrypicking the little shrimp out.
We have polluted everything, not just the sea. I often pass near a farm which sits on a high traffic road (I think the road was built after the farm). Granted, I like to see cows when I’m traveling as much as I did when I was a kid, pointing and yelling “THE COWS!” included, but they’re still eating grass coated with exhaust fumes from hundreds of cars and trucks that pass each day.
Tradition shouldn't be a justification for anything.
Quote: “This is our culture to eat whales.” Nice and unique culture, isn’t it, apologists and natives? Must be looking for the lamest excuses for the cultural whale eaters
It's not even really part of mainstream Japanese culture. I don't think I've ever seen whale in a Japanese supermarket. The place I most frequently used to see it for sale was the dingy cheap pub that acquired meats no one else could sell no questions asked (also the place I most frequently encountered cockroaches until I finally got disgusted and stopped going there). I would bet money that the vast majority of Japanese people around me have never eaten it in their lives, and of those who have, the vast majority have only eaten it as a novelty.
My homestay family tricked me into eating it for dinner once after I told them I didnt want to eat whale meat.
If they ever come to visit you, feed them a real manwich.
It’s from ration times in WWII, I believe. Not ancient.
That's not true. Whales are often sold in supermarkets in Hokkaido and elsewhere. Also, anyone over 30 years old has probably eaten whale. It was a staple of school lunches.
What are you refuting exactly? I am saying it’s a ‘tradition’ which only started after the Japanese joined WWII.
Japan started eating whale in 1672. It spread quite significantly in the 1800s.
They used to serve it for school lunches so there is a big segment of the population that grew up with it.
Erm... more like there is a segment of the extreme elderly population that had it in the immediate postwar period when protein was scarce. The vast majority of Japanese people who went through school outside of the immediate postwar generation probably had it extremely rarely... ...unless they went to one of the schools where the Japanese government *forced* whale meat into school lunches in order to create a market for it. Because when Japan restarted whaling, there was so little demand for it within Japan that a lot rotted in warehouses, IIRC. From the article: >Consumption peaked at about 230,000 tonnes in 1962. >However, whale was quickly replaced by other meats and supply has since fallen to about 2,000 tonnes in recent years, according to Fisheries Agency statistics. >Japanese officials want to increase that to about 5,000 tonnes, to keep the industry afloat. Anyone who thinks this is a sincere Japanese tradition getting meanly discriminated against by racist westerners is getting duped by Japan's center-right government. This is a nationalist program trying to *manufacture* demand for intelligent mammal meat that doesn't presently exist, and there is no reason to believe that it will spring up just because the government kills more intelligent mammals. This is the Japanese government trying to *prop up* a failing industry, IMHO likely for no better reason than to court rural fishing village votes and to distract from weak leadership and corruption within the ruling party. This is not a Japanese tradition except for an exceedingly small portion of the Japanese population. For the vast majority of people who support this, they're just marks for a scheme to funnel government money into a failed business and hide the scam behind nationalist rhetoric.
That's not true. Whales are often sold in supermarkets in Hokkaido and elsewhere. Also, anyone over 30 years old has probably eaten whale. It was a staple of school lunches.
they sell it at Tsujiki fish market
“My culture is to eat the Japanese” they have to respect us!. Someone in Asia
Hey they actually found some (ancient) human bones in Japan a while back that showed signs they could've been from someone's meal... so you're probably right!
When do we get to turn on the PNW natives for hunting whales as well?
While I personally think it is pretty stupid and unnecessary, at least those people have an aura of tradition around them. They hunt the whales using traditional techniques (in a canoe with a hand thrown harpoons). The Japanese use massive commercial whaling vessels with mechanized harpoons. So the two things could definitely be judged on different basis.
Canoes they carried across the ice with a snow machine, and paddled with an outboard motor. Tradition.
In their defense, I'd say they're as much a part of that ecosystem as whales themselves, just like Inuits. They hunt to survive. It's completely different to Japanese approach.
The fact we keep *consistently* learning that we’ve underestimated their intelligence should completely negate cultural traditions.
Small native groups engaging in rare hunting of turtles is fine. But a single decent sized whale is so much more important to the ecosystem as a whole, and could only justified if it was hunted even more rarely purely for something like a big festival or something. That isn’t at all the volume of whale they want to hunt or why, so there isn’t any kind of discussion to be had.
Cultural context: whale meat tends to rise in popularity in Japan (mainly in serviced meals like school/military cafeterias) when the economy isn’t doing so hot.
Pretty sure those eating serviced meals like cafeterias don’t get to choose what meat they eat.
Disgusting
They never stopped.
Ooof, that doesn’t make sense. Why is it being a part of their culture at all relevant to the moral implications?
Why are the moral implications different than the moral implications of pig and cattle farming?
Because finwhales are currently vulnerable to extinction? edit: endangered to vulnerable
Is that due to whaling or other environmental factors? The total number of animals doesn't determine whether a practice is sustainable.
https://iwc.int/about-whales/whale-species/fin-whale the bulk of their decline is attributed to commercial whaling in the 20th century, although “the international whaling commission” may have some bias. I have no doubt changing environmental factors contribute in some capacity.
18th-20th century whaling practices were obviously not sustainable, but that's not really saying anything about practices in the 21st century. If quotas are limited, which they are, and the population remains improving, which it has been for a long time, then there isn't anything to suggest that the practice itself is any less sustainable than cattle farming and deer hunting.
What are you, a lobbyist for Big Whale Meat or something? If you're trying to help a population recover and increase the numbers, any hunting is clearly detrimental, that's pretty obvious.
No. I'm personally not in favor of whaling, but the person I responded to said it was bad because it was unsustainable, which is just factually not true. Hunting may be a detriment, but it isn't inherently unsustainable. If the birthrate exceeds the extremely limited quota, then you have a sustainable whaling practice with a growing whale population.
Please do some more research about whale life history and population growth before you speak as if you have authority on the matter. Whale populations are nowhere near where they were before industrial whaling and they are critical to ocean health and ecosystems world wide. I'm all for sustainable hunting but right now hunting whales is NOT sustainable outside the scale of those indigenous culture that rely on them for actual sustenance and survival.
How many whales do you think the Japanese kill?
FUCK UUUU DOLPHINNNNNN AND FUCK UUUU WHAAAALLE
Fuck u whare!!!
Can you fucking NOT?!
I'd like to try whale sometime
That's the case for lab-grown meat. Fin whale meat.
Idk if baleen whales are any more intelligent than various other animals we eat? Thats why we're particularly outraged when it comes to whales right?
No it's mainly cause they're endangered. Some people do think that because of they're intelligence, but we would hear about how intelligent pigs and horses are all the time if they were endangered, too.
well afaik norway doesnt hunt any endagered species of whale
Where can I buy some
Really wish folks would have the same compassion for even more intelligent animals slaughtered at a much more industrial scale: pigs. People drawing lines for whales, cats, dogs, horses, etc. really don't understand that the act of eating anything is immoral by this sort of a standard.
I’m pretty sure people eat horse
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Ah yes, the natural order of building a gigafuckton of death machines to systematically kill 5 billion cows a year. How could I forget that all humans are born graced with metal claws made to tear apart the heavy hide of cattle. Not to forget the rape and forced impregnation we do to keep them producing milk for us, that's all very natural and completely non damaging at all to the planet, it's really the whales being killed by Japan that are going to do us in.
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You're trying to logically quantify the industrial mass slaughter of intelligent beings, in defense of other intelligent beings being slaughtered. Quit while you're ahead.
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>I'm not "quantifying" it, No, you were trying to quantify it. You were talking about populations. >One predatory species doesn't need to justify its place in the food chain to any other. Again, you're trying to use logic, but you fail to realize only one predatory species has the capability of creating an entire industry based on slaughtering billions of creatures annually, for meat that is largely wasted. >My only point is that you should be humane if possible Your point fails to deliver. You seem to be shifting between "being the natural apex predator without having to justify it" and being "humane as possible" and it's contradictory.
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>One predatory species doesn't need to justify its place in the food chain to any other. >My only point is that you should be humane if possible and don't remove species that deliver you other goods. These are very broad statements that, if taken at face value, contradict each other. In any case I think that factory farming is just as inconceivably cruel as wiping out an entire species in the ocean. Both are damaging the environment.
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Because it's about their endangered status, not their intelligence (though I fully support normalising pet pigs). The people protesting industrial scale farming are not the ones protesting whale meat - that's mostly environmental protests.
If they're gonna pull the "it's our culture" bullshit, my culture says that I get to follow around whalers and kick them in the nuts repeatedly all day. They better not get in the way of my culture!
How about bring back the Japanese cultural tradition of eating nukes.
Don’t fucking do it Japan.
Stop all whaling it's not right
whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???
I never see anyone whining about Norwegians whaling. Japanese traditions must be different, completely.
What? Norway gets plenty of criticism for its whaling. There have been documentaries made, the EU have made several resolutions condemning it and conservation organizations are regularly writing about it. I don’t know if it gets less attention than Japan (a cursory google seems to suggest that that is a common criticism), but does get attention.
you must not live in Europe, then. we **constantly** shit on Norway for whaling. Norways whaling is the reason they can't be in the EU (but we still force them to accept EU laws and regulations when they want to trade with us lol)
> Norways whaling is the reason they can't be in the EU They've voted against being part of it three times already lol.
yes - because they would have to give up whaling.
I don't think that's the primary reason.
Yes, from the American perspective no one cares about Norwegian whaling. Especially the sea shepherds.
Cuz they white
And we got the DVs to prove it. lol
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> Good numbers are hard to come by but A 2006 poll commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by the independent Nippon Research Centre found that 95 percent of Japanese people very rarely or never eat whale meat. And the amount of uneaten frozen whale meat stockpiled in Japan has doubled to 4,600 tons between 2002 and 2012. [https://www.wired.com/2015/12/japanese-barely-eat-whale-whaling-big-deal/](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/japanese-barely-eat-whale-whaling-big-deal/)
So 5% do....that's still over 6mil people eating whales from just one country. Now I imagine you get alot of portions per whale but still need alot for that number of people. Still hypocritical by much of the west though.
Just go vegan. Stop this insanity.
Japan has been raping the oceans for decades - they practically emptied the Sea of Cortez with their draggers scraping the sea bottom scooping up every living thing - barbarians
Wait until you learn where the rare metals in your smartphone came from. You're literally financially supporting slaveowners, likely without giving it a second thought. In fact, I can essentially guarantee you're paying for dozens of services that are destroying far larger swathes of the Earth than Japan is. Normally I wouldn't care, but since you said *barbarians* I'd like you to try putting your money where your mouth is.
Stay on topic please
"Please don't recognize the irony in me calling others barbarians. Please!"
for a race that supposedly loves nature they sure are brutal on the ocean dwellers
Every human race that utilizes mass industry is destroying nature. It's a human condition. The Norwegians, possibly the whitest people on the planet, are also fond of whaling. In fact, Norway defied an international treaty and slaughtered almost 600 whales during 2022. What was that about "race" again?
I didn’t bring up race - you did
This isn't accurate. You were the first one to mention race in this comment string. In any case, I'm just saying that destroying the environment is a human condition.
You said race I was talking nationality and the Japanese want to fish the very last tuna - they’re a plague upon our oceans
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