Oh there's only like 200 whales left, might as well finish them off - icelandic gov.
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Minke has a minimum population estimate of 17000, so you are a bit off there. https://media.fisheries.noaa.gov/2022-08/Com%20Minke%20Whale-Can%20E%20Coast%20Stock_SAR%202021.pdf
Ah. So just a couple of whale hunting seasons away from extinction.
Why do you guys keep talking about Minke whales?
Read the fucking article. They're hunting fin whales, which are considered Vulnerable.
Can any Icelanders explain the point of this to me?
No we can not. This is fucked up. It's one rich guy's hobby:
Im Icelandic and I can confirm this. This massive asshole (Kristjan Loftson) has plenty of money and one hobby, killing whales. He as lost aprox. 20m€ on whaling in the years he has been hunting them.
If he's doing this for profit, there has to be a consumer... Who are the consumers and what are they buying?
Sadly, there is whale meat in our supermarkets and restaurants. The only reason they can sell it is because some of the whale is "necessary" for "research", and the meat is a "byproduct".
What kind of research necessitates killing whales??
Research of the taste of whale meat
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Amazing that such sweeping devastation can be tracked back to one piece of shit.
I'm not Icelandic nor am I a lawyer, but i bet he would stop if his car were harpooned enough times.
I'm pretty sure he would stop if he were harpooned once. Harpoons don't just grow on trees y'know, gotta be thrifty.
So it's not some indigenous thing like in the Americas and is just pure evil capitalism? Ugh!
Yup, we don't even eat whale, only tourists do because they think it's part of our culture.
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I would highly recommend the recent Freakonomics Radio series about whaling. It's Episodes 549-551 and the bonus episode from 2023-08-06. If you're firmly against killing any living creature (or at least sentient creatures), I highly doubt it will change your mind (and I don't think that it should or that it tries to), but I also think it is really fascinating learning about the history of the whaling industry and hearing the perspective of a modern whaler in the bonus episode. Putting aside the obvious ethical issues with killing sentient creatures, it's interesting to consider things like whether there's a sustainable level of whaling, what a sustainable quota would look like, and how much we're in competition with certain whale species for harvesting fish as food for our own species. I personally appreciated how unbiased Freakonomics tried to be in their discussion of the topic.
Idk man. Whales are literally sentient, have culture, families, and fucking language with grammar.
I'm all for eating fish and cows and most animals. But whales are basically people that happen to live in the water. I can't get on board with that.
Whales are literally sentient, have culture, families, and fucking language with grammar.
They (cows) possess substantial problem-solving skills, enabling them to interact effectively with their environment. This intelligence isn't confined to the tangible realm; it also extends profoundly into the emotional sphere. Cows form intricate social relationships within their herd
As a meat eater the argument that we shouldn't eat "intelligent" animals is bull. The livestock we eat all display a higher/equal level of intelligence as your pets. Ultimately we don't eat certain animals because we like them and that's it.
Personally if you're going to eat meat you can't pick and choose which animal is ok to eat and which one isn't. It's either they all are or none of them are
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Wolves too. They have their own cultures, wars, families, even special techniques like having one wolf chase goats up gullies on glaciers, while other wolves ski down the chutes to intercept the goats.
And humans mowed down the entire pack from helicopter. Recently, Montana massacred their packs in a similar way, killing over 100 wolves. It's stomach churning. I've read a couple books on wolves, and some are so sad because the wolves are way too human when you give them more than a passing glance.
They are....unsettlingly smart. Which makes it all the more tragic when someone traps one and shoots it while trapped, and the wolf knows what's going to happen, and calls out one final low goodbye as the human raises the gun. Jesus. I had to put that book down.
I couldn't agree more. It is a excellent overview of whaling. I highly recommend the series to anyone who feels strongly about whales.
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I've only heard about perfumes that once contained whale juices? ...What do these whales produce in terms of raw and or commercial material. or is it for sport these days? not that any of it is okay.
Yes this they used to use wheel spinal fluid as a base for perfumes. Because of course they did.
I think that practise was banned years ago mostly because it isn't remotely sustainable.
Iceland has this weird thing about wailing. You see all these whaling ships right alongside whale tour boats. It's like they sort of get it but can't quite get over the culture of whale hunting.
Which in fairness is part of their culture but they have a Costco there now as well so...
Genociding Native Americans and slavery are part of American culture too, but we mostly stopped that.
Would you accept "ItS tHEiR cUlTuRe" if someone decides whaler hunting is part of their history?
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Sanction them. I love Iceland but the way I see it, sanction them and tell them to knock it off. Capitalism sucks but use whatever few means we have in that system to at least right some wrongs.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Animal rights groups and environmentalists have described as “hugely disappointing” the news that Iceland has given the green light for commercial whaling to resume, after a temporary ban introduced this year came to an end.
The Icelandic government said there will be tougher regulations in place – including better equipment, training and increased monitoring – but campaigners said these were “pointless and irrelevant” because whales will still suffer agonising deaths.
In a statement to the Guardian, Iceland’s minister of foodand agriculture, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, said: “With the expiry of the ban, the ministry is now implementing strict and detailed new requirements for hunting including equipment, methods and increased supervision.
The groups stressed that whales already face myriad threats, including pollution, entanglement in fishing nets, ship strikes and the climate crisis.
Ruud Tombrock, the European director of the Humane Society International, said: “It is inexplicable that minister Svavarsdóttir has dismissed the unequivocal scientific evidence that she herself commissioned, demonstrating the brutality and cruelty of commercial whale killing.
In June, Svavarsdóttir suspended whaling until 31 August after a government-commissioned report concluded that the hunt does not comply with Iceland’s animal welfare legislation.
The original article contains 873 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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Who cares if the whales die horribly and the species goes extinct, right? Oh yeah, new "regulations" make it "good" to do the same shit somehow, so no problem.
it's never about the planet. it's never about life on earth
it's always about "the economy"
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Saw a doc about this that said they could only eat a couple of grams/week because of mercury. What a tragedy.
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