4 ms·

Japan's commercial whaling to restart July 1 after 3-decade hiatus

50 points by Ultramanoid 7y ago

ezconnect 7y ago
The hiatus provided cheap large fishing vessels to other countries, does this imply a boom in new fishing vessel orders?
- spinach 7y ago
  Paragraph 2: "A fleet of five vessels belonging to six whaling operators from Abashiri in Hokkaido Prefecture, Ishimaki in Miyagi Prefecture, Minamiboso in Chiba Prefecture and Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture, who have been conducting the last round of Japan's so-called scientific whaling around Abashiri port since June 1, will embark on the mission."
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
modi15 7y ago
Japan is such an asshole.
- boomskats 7y ago
  https://youtu.be/E39WWj_RpBc https://youtu.be/E39WWj_RpBc
- ciconia 7y ago
  Most countries are assholes.
SapporoChris 7y ago
Please keep in mind, Japanese consider cetaceans just another fish. They simply don't understand all the anti-whaling rhetoric. The other thing to keep in mind is the demand for whale meat has sharply decreased. Japanese would rather eat beef. If you want to eliminate whaling, do so with economic tools. I.e. cheap beef. Lastly, if you find you are anti-whaling but love a juicy steak, I consider you a hypocrite. They're both mammals. I've never seen any conclusive evidence that whales are any better than cattle. All the 'intelligent' behavior I've ever seen reported of is comparable to other animals 'intelligent' behavior that most have no issues of eating.
- godman_8 7y ago
  You make Japanese people sound stupid...of course they understand. They simply choose to ignore it.
- ciconia 7y ago
  > They're both mammals. Whales are not domesticated. They are not farmed. Cattle are not threatened with extinction.
  - SapporoChris 7y ago
    What does domestication or farming have to do with anything. Whaling is a highly regulated industry in Japan, they have no interest in hunting animals to extinction. "Each year, 62 Baird's beaked whales are hunted commercially in Japan, with the meat sold for human consumption." "Estimates for Baird's are of the order of 30,000 individuals." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_beaked_whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_beaked_whale More interesting, the meat contains high levels of mercury and PCBs. Just lost my interest in eating it...
    - eigenvector 7y ago
      International anti-whaling treaties were signed precisely because whales were being hunted to extinction.
    - kjeetgill 7y ago
      > What does domestication or farming have to do with anything. Pretty much everything? You can't really dismiss the parent with: "Naw. I'd rather argue against something you didn't claim". I also hold the impression that the bigger concern with Whales is a question of hunting them to extinction, not a matter of relative intelligence. Fortunately, you do actually end up addressing it anyway; I have no idea if 30,000 is a lot, but if it can really be sustainable fine, eat em. But that just reenforces the idea that a domesticated, farmed population would remove most non-vegan people's concerns.
  - GolDDranks 7y ago
ericdykstra 7y ago
This seems a little overblown when put into context... Commercial fishing kills 300k cetaceans annually. [1] For contrast, at the peak of Japanese whaling, less than 40k were killed per annum[2] China alone, in 2010, had 8.8 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste came from China with an estimated 3.53 million metric tons of it ending up in the ocean. [3] What happens when cetaceans lose their only environment to pollution? I'm a conservationist, myself, but I feel so much energy of conservationists is misdirected at things of little consequence (banning plastic straws is an international debate among first world countries), whereas many of the big issues (unsustainable fossil fuel use and farming techniques) is ignored. 1. http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?281850/Bycatch-is-the-biggest-killer-of-whales http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?281850/Bycatch-is-the-biggest... 2. https://www.organicauthority.com/energetic-health/commercial-fishing-killing-whales https://www.organicauthority.com/energetic-health/commercial... 3. https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting-the-oceans-the-most/ https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting...
- sametmax 7y ago
  Things like this are more a reflect of a general spirit, and fought as a symbol.
  - stareatgoats 7y ago
    Or outright diversions from the real issues. But more often just plain ignorance among the public. Among journalists too, but if a narrative is not rooted in public conceptions then it dies. On a deeper level, probably an effect of click-chasing web news. Or at least seriously exasperated by.
- deogeo 7y ago
  > banning plastic straws Can be viewed as the first step to banning all/most non-degradable/plastic packaging. Which is not a small problem, e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-eat-at-least-50000-plastic-particles-a-year-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-e...
mikekchar 7y ago
Sigh... I blame Greenpeace. Really. Japan was slowly moving away from whale meat. The only people who ate it were older people who nostalgically ate it because it used to be in their school lunches 50 years ago. Everyone I ever talked to said that they didn't like it the few times they ate it. "The Cove" was aired and it moved public perception of eating dolphin meat and whale meat into something embarrassing. It was almost certainly going to disappear. And then Greenpeace decided it would be a good idea to confront Japanese whaling ships and throw rancid butter onto the decks. It hit all the big news outlets in Japan. From that point on, all I heard was, "What are these people children? Why are they doing such anti-social things to our fishermen?" It put everybody's backs up. In defiance, a few izakayas started featuring whale meat. It still wasn't popular but there was this idea of "This is our cultural identity and it's under attack". So people ate it. Now whale and dolphin meat are in every supermarket I've been to in the last few months. It's so incredibly stupid. On top of that, I'm hearing people talk about tuna stocks and say, "All those foreigners are eating sushi now and the tuna is disappearing. It's not their culture. Why does Japan have to suffer from the selfishness of others?" Of course, the average Shunsuke in the street has no idea that Japan takes 80% of the tuna catch and that it's been unsustainable for decades. It is so frustrating when I see people make such hamfisted efforts on such important issues. If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lqet 7y ago
  > If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly. In my experience, these tactics don't really work in any culture.
- dpau 7y ago
  I think it's important to note that Greenpeace's anti-whaling campaign started in 1975 in a world that was much less environmentally conscious than it is now. It can be argued that protests, lobbying and direct action on the part of Greenpeace eventually led to the acceptance of a moratorium by the IWC in 1986. So I think it's a bit unfair to blame Greenpeace. But I agree that it's debatable whether or not the same tactics are useful today. And you bring up a really good point- tuna is a HUGE issue but doesn't get nearly as much attention- perhaps in part because it's not a "sexy" issue. While I think it is important to be extremely sensitive regarding cultural differences and even "eco-imperialism", we also can't just ignore problems so as not to offend anyone..
magwa101 7y ago
You sick fucks.

50 points by Ultramanoid 7y ago

The hiatus provided cheap large fishing vessels to other countries, does this imply a boom in new fishing vessel orders?

spinach 7y ago
Paragraph 2: "A fleet of five vessels belonging to six whaling operators from Abashiri in Hokkaido Prefecture, Ishimaki in Miyagi Prefecture, Minamiboso in Chiba Prefecture and Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture, who have been conducting the last round of Japan's so-called scientific whaling around Abashiri port since June 1, will embark on the mission."

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

modi15 7y ago

Japan is such an asshole.

boomskats 7y ago
https://youtu.be/E39WWj_RpBc https://youtu.be/E39WWj_RpBc
ciconia 7y ago
Most countries are assholes.

SapporoChris 7y ago

Please keep in mind, Japanese consider cetaceans just another fish. They simply don't understand all the anti-whaling rhetoric. The other thing to keep in mind is the demand for whale meat has sharply decreased. Japanese would rather eat beef. If you want to eliminate whaling, do so with economic tools. I.e. cheap beef. Lastly, if you find you are anti-whaling but love a juicy steak, I consider you a hypocrite. They're both mammals. I've never seen any conclusive evidence that whales are any better than cattle. All the 'intelligent' behavior I've ever seen reported of is comparable to other animals 'intelligent' behavior that most have no issues of eating.

godman_8 7y ago
You make Japanese people sound stupid...of course they understand. They simply choose to ignore it.
ciconia 7y ago
> They're both mammals. Whales are not domesticated. They are not farmed. Cattle are not threatened with extinction.
- SapporoChris 7y ago
  What does domestication or farming have to do with anything. Whaling is a highly regulated industry in Japan, they have no interest in hunting animals to extinction. "Each year, 62 Baird's beaked whales are hunted commercially in Japan, with the meat sold for human consumption." "Estimates for Baird's are of the order of 30,000 individuals." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_beaked_whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_beaked_whale More interesting, the meat contains high levels of mercury and PCBs. Just lost my interest in eating it...
  - eigenvector 7y ago
    International anti-whaling treaties were signed precisely because whales were being hunted to extinction.
  - kjeetgill 7y ago
    > What does domestication or farming have to do with anything. Pretty much everything? You can't really dismiss the parent with: "Naw. I'd rather argue against something you didn't claim". I also hold the impression that the bigger concern with Whales is a question of hunting them to extinction, not a matter of relative intelligence. Fortunately, you do actually end up addressing it anyway; I have no idea if 30,000 is a lot, but if it can really be sustainable fine, eat em. But that just reenforces the idea that a domesticated, farmed population would remove most non-vegan people's concerns.
- GolDDranks 7y ago

ericdykstra 7y ago

This seems a little overblown when put into context... Commercial fishing kills 300k cetaceans annually. [1] For contrast, at the peak of Japanese whaling, less than 40k were killed per annum[2] China alone, in 2010, had 8.8 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste came from China with an estimated 3.53 million metric tons of it ending up in the ocean. [3] What happens when cetaceans lose their only environment to pollution? I'm a conservationist, myself, but I feel so much energy of conservationists is misdirected at things of little consequence (banning plastic straws is an international debate among first world countries), whereas many of the big issues (unsustainable fossil fuel use and farming techniques) is ignored. 1. http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?281850/Bycatch-is-the-biggest-killer-of-whales http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?281850/Bycatch-is-the-biggest... 2. https://www.organicauthority.com/energetic-health/commercial-fishing-killing-whales https://www.organicauthority.com/energetic-health/commercial... 3. https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting-the-oceans-the-most/ https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting...

sametmax 7y ago
Things like this are more a reflect of a general spirit, and fought as a symbol.
- stareatgoats 7y ago
  Or outright diversions from the real issues. But more often just plain ignorance among the public. Among journalists too, but if a narrative is not rooted in public conceptions then it dies. On a deeper level, probably an effect of click-chasing web news. Or at least seriously exasperated by.
deogeo 7y ago
> banning plastic straws Can be viewed as the first step to banning all/most non-degradable/plastic packaging. Which is not a small problem, e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-eat-at-least-50000-plastic-particles-a-year-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-e...

mikekchar 7y ago

Sigh... I blame Greenpeace. Really. Japan was slowly moving away from whale meat. The only people who ate it were older people who nostalgically ate it because it used to be in their school lunches 50 years ago. Everyone I ever talked to said that they didn't like it the few times they ate it. "The Cove" was aired and it moved public perception of eating dolphin meat and whale meat into something embarrassing. It was almost certainly going to disappear. And then Greenpeace decided it would be a good idea to confront Japanese whaling ships and throw rancid butter onto the decks. It hit all the big news outlets in Japan. From that point on, all I heard was, "What are these people children? Why are they doing such anti-social things to our fishermen?" It put everybody's backs up. In defiance, a few izakayas started featuring whale meat. It still wasn't popular but there was this idea of "This is our cultural identity and it's under attack". So people ate it. Now whale and dolphin meat are in every supermarket I've been to in the last few months. It's so incredibly stupid. On top of that, I'm hearing people talk about tuna stocks and say, "All those foreigners are eating sushi now and the tuna is disappearing. It's not their culture. Why does Japan have to suffer from the selfishness of others?" Of course, the average Shunsuke in the street has no idea that Japan takes 80% of the tuna catch and that it's been unsustainable for decades. It is so frustrating when I see people make such hamfisted efforts on such important issues. If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lqet 7y ago
> If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly. In my experience, these tactics don't really work in any culture.
dpau 7y ago
I think it's important to note that Greenpeace's anti-whaling campaign started in 1975 in a world that was much less environmentally conscious than it is now. It can be argued that protests, lobbying and direct action on the part of Greenpeace eventually led to the acceptance of a moratorium by the IWC in 1986. So I think it's a bit unfair to blame Greenpeace. But I agree that it's debatable whether or not the same tactics are useful today. And you bring up a really good point- tuna is a HUGE issue but doesn't get nearly as much attention- perhaps in part because it's not a "sexy" issue. While I think it is important to be extremely sensitive regarding cultural differences and even "eco-imperialism", we also can't just ignore problems so as not to offend anyone..

magwa101 7y ago

You sick fucks.