Whale Wars

Bror Jace

Bror Jace

Active member
I did a search and didn't see this topic covered ... just some articles about the Navy restricting its use of sonar so as not to 'confuse' whales.

In North America, we are into the 2nd season of the show Whale Wars and I've become hopelessly addicted. If you are NOT in North America, you can watch short video clips and even full episodes here:

http://animal.discovery.com/videos/whale-wars/

In general, I'm a pretty right-wing guy. I'm a meat-eating proponent of individual gun rights and usually support bombing, strafing and shelling all enemies of the United States and her allies. I've been advocating that the US Navy step up their presence in the Gulf of Aden and sink any and all pirates once they are identified (which, I know, is the tough part).

But I also think whales are rather special creatures and should not be killed for food. So, I cheer heartily for the Sea Shepherd hooligans and support their obnoxious harassing of the Japanese whale fleet.

Anyone else here watch the show and/or choose a side? :pirate:
 
I've seen a couple episodes of it.....at zero dark 30 when nothing else was on. Those guys are a buncha idiots. Take an old tube, with a bunch of novice sailors, thru the seas they do. Attempt to board vessels of a soveriegn nation (Piracy) on the high seas. Whack jobs and somebody is gonna end up dead.
 
Piracy is not the word the intl courts use in this context, btw.... Should we not rather call those whale huggers terrorists? :angel:

Sarcasm aside: Seriously, while the vids do not run on my machine (you guys do need to learn program platform resistant stuff, not everypody runs Bill´s PC), in general I side more with the original poster:

Whales are something (like Dolphins, Octopuses, etc) very special as they almmost reach human intelligence levels and are endangered as species.

I fully agree they should not be pushed to extinction as a species because some millionaires pay 200+ $ the kilo to impress their latest lay in a fancy restaurant, this from any halfway responsible POV IMHO.

Maybe my parents educated me wrongly?

Rattler
 
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I support the Japs 110%......

What those eco-terrorists are doing is a little something called piracy. The japs are in the legal clear to go after the whales.

All I know is this.... if I'm in International Waters and a bunch of eco-nutjobs board my ship and try to sink/disable/etc me...... they're getting three to the chest and being thrown overboard for bait.
 
They can be passionate about saving whales and flipper all they want. Don't necessarily agree with whaling, (although I do disagree with the sonar restrictions on the navy) . My problem is it hurts to watch the idiots.
 
I detest the protesters because of their "Look at us" attitudes, but having said that I sympathise with their cause as i have seen what the Japanese fisheries have done to the world's fish stocks. They have ruined any fisheries anywhere near their own country, and then came to southern waters and have decimated the southern Bluefin Tuna stocks to the point where Australian fishermen can no longer fish for tuna to sell in Australia. We must sell it to the Japanese, as no one in Australia can afford to buy it due to Japanese prices.

We restrict fishing in Australian territorial waters, but of course as soon as the fish migrate outside, the Japanese boats scoop them up. This will go on until there is nothing left for anyone and the Japanese will find another fishery to decimate like Whales,... What next...

Something has to be done or the Japanese will eat us out of house and home. So for once I quietly support the protesters.
 
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rattler said:
Piracy is not the word the intl courts use in this context, btw.... Should we not rather call those whale huggers terrorists? :angel:

Sarcasm aside: Seriously, while the vids do not run on my machine (you guys do need to learn program platform resistant stuff, not everypody runs Bill´s PC), in general I side more with the original poster:

Whales are something (like Dolphins, Octopuses, etc) very special as they almmost reach human intelligence levels and are endangered as species.

I fully agree they should not be pushed to extinction as a species because some millionaires pay 200+ $ the kilo to impress their latest lay in a fancy restaurant, this from any halfway responsible POV IMHO.

Maybe my parents educated me wrongly?

Rattler
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Oddly enough I think in part the answer is not to ban whaling but to ban the sale of whale products, if people want to sail out and harpoon a whale for dinner I say good luck to them but I think strip mining the ocean of them to make a $200 Steak, couple of bars of soap and some perfume seems a bit extreme.

senojekips said:
I detest the protesters because of their "Look at us" attitudes, but having said that i sympathise with their cause as i have seen what the Japanese fisheries have done to the world's fish stocks. They have ruined any fisheries within a couple of thousand miles of Japan, and then came to southern waters and have decimated the southern Bluefin Tuna stocks to the point where Australian fishermen can no longer fish for tuna to sell in Australia. We must sell it to the Japanese, as no one in Australia can afford to buy it due to Japanese prices.

We restrict fishing in Australian territorial waters, but of course as soon as the fish migrate outside, the Japanese boats scoop them up. This will go on until there is nothing left for anyone and the japanese will find another fishery to decimate like Whales,... What next...

Something has to be done or the japs will eat us out of house and home.
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This I agree with entirely.
 
MontyB said:
Oddly enough I think in part the answer is not to ban whaling but to ban the sale of whale products, if people want to sail out and harpoon a whale for dinner I say good luck to them but I think strip mining the ocean of them to make a $200 Steak, couple of bars of soap and some perfume seems a bit extreme.
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Aaahh,... but there lies the rub Monty. If we were to believe the Japanese, these things are merely left overs from their very important "research' where they kill a 45-80 ton whale merely to recover the otoliths out of the whale's ear. they have been killing thousands of whales every year for about ten years using this story.

Either they must be finding out a lot about whales, or they have really dumb scientists. A bit like felling all the trees to research ways of saving the forest.

Blatant, LIARS!! (of course this is purely my uninformed opinion)
 
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senojekips said:
Aaahh,... but there lies the rub Monty. If we were to believe the Japanese, these things are merely left overs from their very important "research' where they kill a 45-80 ton whale merely to recover the otoliths out of the whale's ear. they have been killing thousands of whales every year for about ten years using this story.

Either they must be finding out a lot about whales, or they have really dumb scientists. A bit like felling all the trees to research ways of saving the forest.

Blatant, LIARS!!
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I suspect the interest in blowhole analysis would decrease rapidly if they couldn't make a profit from it (Trust me I don't see professor Yamamoto being thrilled about having to bury 50000 tons of dissected whale carcasses), besides allowing communities to hunt whale for food would actually remove the "traditional" arguments that lead to the dodgy scientific culling.
 
Mmmmm..... Whale Sushi.....

My mouth is salivating at the thought.

I'm not for hunting the little bastards to extinction. But I do think that eating them isn't a issue.

But for these eco-terrorists to board ships and attempt to harm the vessel and/or the crew is a major issue. Even if they simply wish to disable the vessel that is a major safety issue which can lead to death of the crew. So may the eco-nuts screw up royally and I truly believe that their jackass of a captain and crew will die because of their stupidity.
 
I don't think we should catch things to extinction but as for some kind of special status of the animals per se, not really interested. Resources should be sustainable, not used up to death.
You can make a good case statement for many animals, and many of them end up in our dinner tables anyway.
Americans condemn Koreans for eating dogs, I'm sure quite a few Indians have something to say about Americans eating beef.
etc.
 
Wow, I just posted this a couple hours ago and look at the response I get. :-o

sorry rattler, I didn't post the vids nor choose the formats. I detest Darth Gates as much as you do. Yes, I am a Vista victim. :mad:

Being a right-wing zealot, I'm a less than perfectly comfortable siding with the eco-extremists. If they were protesting the Navy during a new submarine launch, I'd be for Navy MPs whipping their @$$es.

03USMC: "My problem is it hurts to watch the idiots"

Yeah, they have the passion ... but do seem to be an accident waiting to happen. About 1 out of 3 know how to handle a Zodiac. It is a bit like watching a bunch of high-school kids performing pranks ... and doing it poorly. In one of the deleted scenes, Jane Taylor (former US Navy) describes them as pretty amateurish and was more than a little embarrassed when Peter was congratulating them on how well one of the boat-launching exercises went ... when it was more like an old Keystone Cops movie. :roll:

And 5.56 x 45mm, you can be 110% against these guys ... but you can't lump them in with the real pirates in the Gulf of Aden who use deadly weapons to kill or threaten people, usurp their ships and cargo and hold them for ransom. Sea Shepherd are kinda-silly eco-zealots throwing stink bombs and slippery powder designed to harass and waste the whalers time. They are specifically NOT harming the whaling ship crews and it appears no crew member has been harmed to date. I have my doubts about their effectiveness ... but I can't help but to cheer for the underdogs. :wink:

The truth is whaling has been banned but the clods who wrote the law conveniently left a loophole you could drive a factory ship through :read: ... and that's just what the Japanese are doing. Their whole "Research" angle is a big fat lie and everyone knows it. :confused:

Of course, two can play at the lying game. Paul Watson, captain of the Steve Irwin and leader of Sea Shepherd faked being shot in order to get sympathy. That was a low for the show and Sea Shepherd. I hope they have learned their lesson and don't do THAT again! :|
 
I hate hippies and I hate hippies on the ocean..... Hippies disturbing my crew and damaging my property should be feed to sharks alive.....

What the hippies are doing is called piracy.... no different then the idiots in the Gulf of Aden. Is it as violent? Nope.... is it still piracy? Yup.....

If they want to play with me that's their problem..... my game my rules.

In the end I think the Japs need to pull a France.

Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior
 
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Well there's no doubt that the Japanese are taking advantage of a loop hole and I don't agree with that.

But watching those idiots try to launch and retrieve Zod's is like watching cows trying to roller skate on ice. When one of finally gets crushed between a gunwale anf the hull of thier tub................I'm a gonna......LMMFAO. :p
 
"What the hippies are doing is called piracy ... no different then the idiots in the Gulf of Aden."

C'mon ... no different? Really?? :confused: The Somali pirates attack and board ships with AKMs and RPGs seeking to kill and steal. The Sea Shepherd lunatics are essentially pulling pranks on the whalers causing no bodily harm and little or no property damage. Hate them all you want but they aren't even in the same league. :roll:

If you were a whaler and responded with deadly force against these goofy amateurs, there would be world-wide condemnation of you and the loophole allowing the limited harvesting of whales in the whale sanctuaries would be closed. It might even lead to another boycott of Japanese products ... that's the last thing the Japanese want.

senojekips: "I detest the protesters because of their 'Look at us' attitudes."

It's the 'look at us' tactics that have brought international attention to the grisly business of whaling ... the bloody photos and video footage in an age when good clandestine footage was pretty rare ... unlike today where everyone with a pulse has a camera phone and some can even stream live footage.

I do think that's what some of of these eco-zealots are after: provoke the Japanese into over-response and play victime/martyr and get sympathy leading to massive concessions on whaling.

I had forgotten about the sinking of the original Rainbow Warrior. Leave it to the French to pick on a bunch of pacifists. I'm surprised the vegan hippie women on board didn't kick their @$$es. :roll:

Still, Wiki says it was a PR disaster ... and they are probably right. Winning a fight with a bunch of peace activists is like beating on your kid sister. Don't expect people to think you are cool because of it. :-?

This Friday, the Japanese are using LRADs to drive off the Sea Shepherd protestors. Let the games begin! :rock:
 
Bror Jace said:
If you were a whaler and responded with deadly force against these goofy amateurs, there would be world-wide condemnation of you and the loophole allowing the limited harvesting of whales in the whale sanctuaries would be closed. It might even lead to another boycott of Japanese products ... that's the last thing the Japanese want.
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True enough..............Besides these Azz Clowns are gonna kill themselves, dorkin around like they do.
 
Bror Jace said:
I had forgotten about the sinking of the original Rainbow Warrior. Leave it to the French to pick on a bunch of pacifists. I'm surprised the vegan hippie women on board didn't kick their @$$es. :roll:
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You know there were two funny things with the Rainbow Warrior incident:
1) That the news reported it "French Frogmen Seen Landing After Attack"

Most of us thought that because they were French and Male they were frogmen by default.

2) The vaunted "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services were arrested by the New Zealand police a feat that roughly half of New Zealands criminals manage to avoid.

Anyway back to the whales.
:)
 
Bror Jace said:
senojekips: "I detest the protesters because of their 'Look at us' attitudes."

It's the 'look at us' tactics that have brought international attention to the grisly business of whaling ... the bloody photos and video footage in an age when good clandestine footage was pretty rare ... unlike today where everyone with a pulse has a camera phone and some can even stream live footage.
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Well, I think they are they are doing a pretty p!ss poor job of it, and I reckon that has been bought about by their "Look at us" attitudes. Nobody likes show ponies even if they are in the right. In fact I would go so far as to say especially when they are in the right.

If they spent the money on supporting those bodies who are against whaling, that they have spent swanning around on a ship in the Southern Ocean taking videos, it would have been much better spent, but that would not have been half as much fun would it.
 
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senojekips said:
Well, I think they are they are doing a pretty p!ss poor job of it, and I reckon that has been bought about by their "Look at us" attitudes. Nobody likes show ponies even if they are in the right. In fact I would go so far as to say especially when they are in the right.

If they spent the money on supporting those bodies who are against whaling, that they have spent swanning around on a ship in the Southern Ocean taking videos, it would have been much better spent, but that would not have been half as much fun would it.
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Look, we are all human, after all.

Dont try and tell me - seriously - tht you would do such calcs in the same situation. In Spanish (Mods: Sorry, I do not know English proverbs; others: Please suppply me with the English equivalent): "...que dios no me ponga donde haya, por que si haya, ya no haya".

Rattler
 
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