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According to the article “ Pro-whaling nations expected the moratorium to be temporary, until consensus could be reached on sustainable catch quotas.” If this

According to the article “ Pro-whaling nations expected the moratorium to be temporary, until consensus could be reached on sustainable catch quotas.” If this fishing is truly sustainable and doesn’t threaten the whales with extinction there shouldn’t be a problem. Why should whales get protection that pigs, cows, and other animals don’t?

nnutter 8y ago
If you didn’t make them you don’t get to eat them?
- sildur 8y ago
  You should not eat fish from the sea, then.
  - _ph_ 8y ago
    At least, we should eat much less fish from the sea. With fishing, as with hunting, the limits need to be what the eco system can sustain. The sad part is, due to our overfishing, the sustainable fishing rates are much lower today than they would have been 100 years ago. If we had not overfished, we could fish much more than we should today. Same applies to whaling in much stronger form.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  I think a better way to state the premise more reasonably is to say that you don't get to engage in hunting/harvesting practices that risk extinction of the species. That is a position that can be logically consistent with both claims "Farming domesticated animals is okay" and "Whaling is a practice that should be heavily regulated with careful quotas"
akiselev 8y ago
Are you serious? Because a pig or calf can be bought for a few hundred bucks, few thousand tops, and raised in a suburban back yard. Because there is zero chance they are keystone species. An adult sperm whale weighs over 100 tons and eats about a ton a day. Do you not see the practical implications of that with regards to irreversible damage? Edit: missed the sustainable part of your post. Whaling afaik can't be sustainable because the demand in Japan is high enough that whale populations simply can't replenish fast enough. They have a very slow reproductive and nurturing cycle.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  From the article: "Today, whale stocks are carefully monitored, and while many species are still endangered, others - like the minke whale that Japan primarily hunts - are not."
- morsch 8y ago
  I thought the demand in Japan was so low they had trouble selling the whale meat they hunted in the past couple of years. But I haven't been able to find a reliable source for that. I always figured the Japanese stance was borne of out of politics and nationalism -- and possibly cronyism, I'm sure somebody is getting rich -- rather than driven by consumer demand.
  - Xixi 8y ago
    One source, albeit a little bit old (2012): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9330828/Seventy-five-per-cent-of-Japanese-whale-meat-unsold.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/933082...
ant6n 8y ago
1) its not actually sustainable 2) whales are sentient, or pretty close to it
- janimo 8y ago
  As opposed to? Aren't pigs or cattle sentient?
  - TOGoS 8y ago
    Yes. The way we treat them is wrong, too.
  - beat 8y ago
    No, pigs and cattle are not sentient. Sentience is a complex question, but it mostly revolves around language and symbol-making/recognition. There's substantial evidence that whales actually have language. Pigs and cattle do not. (edit: I'm misusing the word "sentience" here. The problem is that it's not the right distinction. Cows/pigs are sentient, in that they can feel emotions. But they cannot reason. So it's not just that whales are sentient, but also that whales can reason. At any rate, whales are considered by most experts to be able to think similarly to the way humans think - language, symbolism.)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - janimo 8y ago
      I am pretty sure we do not want to go down the 'cannot reason so can be eaten' path.
    - lprubin 8y ago
      I believe the important distinction is not whether or not pigs and cows are sentient/language capable. Instead the real question is can they suffer. And if they can is it acceptable to cause that suffering simply for entertainment value? Ask yourself if dog fighting is acceptable. That is clearly animal suffering for purely entertainment purposes. If you live in a situation where you can survive and thrive without eating meat, how is eating meat any different than watching dog fighting? It’s animal suffering for enjoyment purposes.
janimo 8y ago
Why should whales get protection that pigs, cows, and other animals don’t? Most westerners do not consume whale meat, so there's no cognitive dissonance to prevent them from firmly opposing whaling.
beat 8y ago
Cows and pigs are farm-raised, not wild. There are plenty of restrictions around hunting any wild animals in most nations, related to sustainability. The question is, do we totally ban whaling in light of their endangered status, or do we allow limited whaling as long as it's sustainable? Another moral question is in play, though. Whales are widely believed to be sentient, as intelligent as human beings. If that is true, is it ethical to hunt them at all?
- malvosenior 8y ago
  > Whales are widely believed to be sentient, as intelligent as human beings. This is not true. They are considered smart animals but not as smart as humans (obviously). I think a pig is supposed to have similar levels of intelligence. For the record I oppose whaling, but I don't think making hyperbolic statements is going to help anything. EDIT: If anyone would like to post some information showing that whales are as smart as humans I'd love to see it.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    > not as smart as humans (obviously) Why obviously?
OldFatCactus 8y ago
Ignoring the whataboutism going on here, there are a lot of other glaring issues with this comparison. Whales are not farmed. Their populations have been in decline since the dawn of sailing. Some organizations consider the targeted whale species (Minke?) to be endangered.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  Which organizations consider Minke to be endangered? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale#Population_and_conservation_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale#Population_and_con...
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
While I agree with the first part of your point, I've come to the opposite conclusion: slaughtering cows and pigs is morally indefensible. One aspect of this particular cognitive dissonance has always baffled me: you can, for example, see lots of pictures in reddit's "r/aww" subreddit of adorable pigs and cows, and in many cases the draw is the way these animals show behaviors analagous to humans, e.g. cuddling, or playing a game, or enjoying a pet by a human. And folks could coo over these adorable pictures while eating bacon or a burger. And similarly people have no problem eating pork or beef, but express sheer disgust at the thought of eating horse or dog meat. At some point you realize that these distinctions are arbitrary. This is certainly a very unpopular opinion in the population at large, but I've always been interested in how cultures can look back at earlier versions of themselves and be amazed at how wrong humans previously were, e.g. with slavery, treatment of women, colonialism, attitudes toward homosexuality, etc. I think that in the future societies will look back at our consumption of meat, especially factory farming methods, and wonder why it took us so long to change our attitudes on this issue.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  > I think that in the future societies will look back at our consumption of meat, especially factory farming methods, and wonder why it took us so long to change our attitudes on this issue. How would future societies propose we feed ourselves if we don't eat meat?
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    You can eat plants perfectly fine which in addition is much easier on the environment. At a minimum meat consumption could be reduced a lot.
    - merb 8y ago
      some plants would kill the planet as well. let's take almonds for example, they need a huge amount of water. and still more and more products will include them. if everybody eats plants we would also need a huge amount of water/field sizes to feed everybody. guess the best thing is a healthy mix of everything.
siffland 8y ago
If you are comparing pigs and cows to whaling you are comparing apples and oranges. Pigs and cows and such are farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter. If you compared it to hunting deer and moose and elephants and lions and whatnot that would be more of a comparison. Still the difference there is individuals are getting hunting licenses as opposed to an entire country. You can compare tuna fishing and crabbing and that would probably be the best comparison, and depending on what you read even those have sustainability issues. I think it is quite silly to hunt some species almost to extinction and ban it for awhile just to repeat the events of the past (lather, rinse, repeat i guess). But i am not Japanese and would not enjoy eating whale meat.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >If you are comparing pigs and cows to whaling you are comparing apples and oranges. Pigs and cows and such are farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter. That's just an artificial distinction. They didn't began their lives as "farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter".
  - tossaccount123 8y ago
    >They didn't began their lives as "farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter". they did though, cows were domesticated from aurochs and pigs from wild boars for the express purpose of making them easier to slaughter as livestock rather than having to hunt them. Same for chickens. Is it humane? I don't know but they they wouldn't exist in their present form if not for humans domesticating and breeding them for their current characteristics
    - hkyeti 8y ago
      Just like the modern layer hen, which produces 2 orders of magnitude more eggs than its original wild ancestor (and all the added strain and suffering), or the modern broiler chicken which has been so evolved by humans so that it's feet can't even adequately carry it's grotesquely overweight body. We have evolved those animals for increased profit at the cost of vastly more suffering by sentient beings that experience pain, fear etc
newcrobuzon 8y ago
For the same reasons that mountain gorillas do?
- javagram 8y ago
  According to one of the first DDG results, “Mountain gorillas are one of the most endangered animals in the world”. Supposedly this isn’t the case for the species of whale being hunted and the fishing is actually sustainable, according to other information posted here and on Wikipedia stating there’s a population of 500,000 minke whales and they are on a “least concern” list.

nnutter 8y ago

If you didn’t make them you don’t get to eat them?

sildur 8y ago
You should not eat fish from the sea, then.
- _ph_ 8y ago
  At least, we should eat much less fish from the sea. With fishing, as with hunting, the limits need to be what the eco system can sustain. The sad part is, due to our overfishing, the sustainable fishing rates are much lower today than they would have been 100 years ago. If we had not overfished, we could fish much more than we should today. Same applies to whaling in much stronger form.
ineedasername 8y ago
I think a better way to state the premise more reasonably is to say that you don't get to engage in hunting/harvesting practices that risk extinction of the species. That is a position that can be logically consistent with both claims "Farming domesticated animals is okay" and "Whaling is a practice that should be heavily regulated with careful quotas"

akiselev 8y ago

Are you serious? Because a pig or calf can be bought for a few hundred bucks, few thousand tops, and raised in a suburban back yard. Because there is zero chance they are keystone species. An adult sperm whale weighs over 100 tons and eats about a ton a day. Do you not see the practical implications of that with regards to irreversible damage? Edit: missed the sustainable part of your post. Whaling afaik can't be sustainable because the demand in Japan is high enough that whale populations simply can't replenish fast enough. They have a very slow reproductive and nurturing cycle.

lern_too_spel 8y ago
From the article: "Today, whale stocks are carefully monitored, and while many species are still endangered, others - like the minke whale that Japan primarily hunts - are not."
morsch 8y ago
I thought the demand in Japan was so low they had trouble selling the whale meat they hunted in the past couple of years. But I haven't been able to find a reliable source for that. I always figured the Japanese stance was borne of out of politics and nationalism -- and possibly cronyism, I'm sure somebody is getting rich -- rather than driven by consumer demand.
- Xixi 8y ago
  One source, albeit a little bit old (2012): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9330828/Seventy-five-per-cent-of-Japanese-whale-meat-unsold.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/933082...

ant6n 8y ago

1) its not actually sustainable 2) whales are sentient, or pretty close to it

janimo 8y ago
As opposed to? Aren't pigs or cattle sentient?
- TOGoS 8y ago
  Yes. The way we treat them is wrong, too.
- beat 8y ago
  No, pigs and cattle are not sentient. Sentience is a complex question, but it mostly revolves around language and symbol-making/recognition. There's substantial evidence that whales actually have language. Pigs and cattle do not. (edit: I'm misusing the word "sentience" here. The problem is that it's not the right distinction. Cows/pigs are sentient, in that they can feel emotions. But they cannot reason. So it's not just that whales are sentient, but also that whales can reason. At any rate, whales are considered by most experts to be able to think similarly to the way humans think - language, symbolism.)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - janimo 8y ago
    I am pretty sure we do not want to go down the 'cannot reason so can be eaten' path.
  - lprubin 8y ago
    I believe the important distinction is not whether or not pigs and cows are sentient/language capable. Instead the real question is can they suffer. And if they can is it acceptable to cause that suffering simply for entertainment value? Ask yourself if dog fighting is acceptable. That is clearly animal suffering for purely entertainment purposes. If you live in a situation where you can survive and thrive without eating meat, how is eating meat any different than watching dog fighting? It’s animal suffering for enjoyment purposes.

janimo 8y ago

Why should whales get protection that pigs, cows, and other animals don’t? Most westerners do not consume whale meat, so there's no cognitive dissonance to prevent them from firmly opposing whaling.

beat 8y ago

Cows and pigs are farm-raised, not wild. There are plenty of restrictions around hunting any wild animals in most nations, related to sustainability. The question is, do we totally ban whaling in light of their endangered status, or do we allow limited whaling as long as it's sustainable? Another moral question is in play, though. Whales are widely believed to be sentient, as intelligent as human beings. If that is true, is it ethical to hunt them at all?

malvosenior 8y ago
> Whales are widely believed to be sentient, as intelligent as human beings. This is not true. They are considered smart animals but not as smart as humans (obviously). I think a pig is supposed to have similar levels of intelligence. For the record I oppose whaling, but I don't think making hyperbolic statements is going to help anything. EDIT: If anyone would like to post some information showing that whales are as smart as humans I'd love to see it.
- Nursie 8y ago
  > not as smart as humans (obviously) Why obviously?

OldFatCactus 8y ago

Ignoring the whataboutism going on here, there are a lot of other glaring issues with this comparison. Whales are not farmed. Their populations have been in decline since the dawn of sailing. Some organizations consider the targeted whale species (Minke?) to be endangered.

lern_too_spel 8y ago
Which organizations consider Minke to be endangered? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale#Population_and_conservation_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale#Population_and_con...

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

While I agree with the first part of your point, I've come to the opposite conclusion: slaughtering cows and pigs is morally indefensible. One aspect of this particular cognitive dissonance has always baffled me: you can, for example, see lots of pictures in reddit's "r/aww" subreddit of adorable pigs and cows, and in many cases the draw is the way these animals show behaviors analagous to humans, e.g. cuddling, or playing a game, or enjoying a pet by a human. And folks could coo over these adorable pictures while eating bacon or a burger. And similarly people have no problem eating pork or beef, but express sheer disgust at the thought of eating horse or dog meat. At some point you realize that these distinctions are arbitrary. This is certainly a very unpopular opinion in the population at large, but I've always been interested in how cultures can look back at earlier versions of themselves and be amazed at how wrong humans previously were, e.g. with slavery, treatment of women, colonialism, attitudes toward homosexuality, etc. I think that in the future societies will look back at our consumption of meat, especially factory farming methods, and wonder why it took us so long to change our attitudes on this issue.

malvosenior 8y ago
> I think that in the future societies will look back at our consumption of meat, especially factory farming methods, and wonder why it took us so long to change our attitudes on this issue. How would future societies propose we feed ourselves if we don't eat meat?
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  You can eat plants perfectly fine which in addition is much easier on the environment. At a minimum meat consumption could be reduced a lot.
  - merb 8y ago
    some plants would kill the planet as well. let's take almonds for example, they need a huge amount of water. and still more and more products will include them. if everybody eats plants we would also need a huge amount of water/field sizes to feed everybody. guess the best thing is a healthy mix of everything.

siffland 8y ago

If you are comparing pigs and cows to whaling you are comparing apples and oranges. Pigs and cows and such are farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter. If you compared it to hunting deer and moose and elephants and lions and whatnot that would be more of a comparison. Still the difference there is individuals are getting hunting licenses as opposed to an entire country. You can compare tuna fishing and crabbing and that would probably be the best comparison, and depending on what you read even those have sustainability issues. I think it is quite silly to hunt some species almost to extinction and ban it for awhile just to repeat the events of the past (lather, rinse, repeat i guess). But i am not Japanese and would not enjoy eating whale meat.

coldtea 8y ago
>If you are comparing pigs and cows to whaling you are comparing apples and oranges. Pigs and cows and such are farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter. That's just an artificial distinction. They didn't began their lives as "farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter".
- tossaccount123 8y ago
  >They didn't began their lives as "farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter". they did though, cows were domesticated from aurochs and pigs from wild boars for the express purpose of making them easier to slaughter as livestock rather than having to hunt them. Same for chickens. Is it humane? I don't know but they they wouldn't exist in their present form if not for humans domesticating and breeding them for their current characteristics
  - hkyeti 8y ago
    Just like the modern layer hen, which produces 2 orders of magnitude more eggs than its original wild ancestor (and all the added strain and suffering), or the modern broiler chicken which has been so evolved by humans so that it's feet can't even adequately carry it's grotesquely overweight body. We have evolved those animals for increased profit at the cost of vastly more suffering by sentient beings that experience pain, fear etc

newcrobuzon 8y ago

For the same reasons that mountain gorillas do?

javagram 8y ago
According to one of the first DDG results, “Mountain gorillas are one of the most endangered animals in the world”. Supposedly this isn’t the case for the species of whale being hunted and the fishing is actually sustainable, according to other information posted here and on Wikipedia stating there’s a population of 500,000 minke whales and they are on a “least concern” list.