“This due to their campaigns against whaling and sealing. Their campaigns are against a reasonable and sustainable harvesting of marine resources," states the Head of the Norwegian Fishermen’s Union, Reidar Nilsen, yesterday in paper, Fiskeribladet Fiskaren.
His reply was a response to WWF Norway that had made statements that the fishermen overfished the marine resources and thus were a threat to the world’s food resources, but Nilsen said the NGOs are a bigger threat to the world’s food resources through their anti whaling and anti sealing actions. According to Nilsen, it was in the fishermen’s own interest to conserve and harvest marine resources in a responsible way.
It seems as well that Mr. Nilsen’s statement has not as much to do with eating whale and seal meat but again as an “whales eat too much fish” argument. Nilson states that the whales are consuming 4 or 5 times as much fish than the fishermen are harvesting.
According to Norwegian animal welfare organisation, Dyrebeskyttelsen, It’s wrong to make scapegoats of the whales. They state, “The whales belong in the eco system, and that the fish the whales are eating are brought back to the eco system. Humans on the contrary are removing both fish and marine mammals from the system."
We have also heard that the Norwegian IWC Commissioner, Mr. Klepsvik , has stated that the Norwegians are managing their marine resources in a holistic approach, meaning if they take out fish from the seas, they must also harvest whales.
Cheers,
Ann
Sweden
A very good post D.S !
This is just my personal view here. Why shouldn't the Norwegians and Icelanders eat a " few" whales?As it is know the minke whale quota this year will be set about 30-50 whales? This is a reasonable quota IMO.
The Japanese and the Norwegians are both hunting about 1000 minke whales each. Maybe sustainable , maybe not. Greenpeace thinks hunting about 600 minke whales in Norway is nothing to make a big fuss of as long as they don't increase quotas.
We have also mentioned that the Japanese are hunting minkes in a Sanctuary, the Norwegians and the Icelanders in their own EEZ. So it's their " own " whales.
I have made a proposal here on the blog re my view ( it's similar to the former US Commissioners proposal) re a solution of the whaling conflict:
1) No scientific whaling
2) No whaling in the Sanctuary
3 ) Let the Japanese whale in their own EEZ Only minke whales are allowed to be hunted etc.
Also another solution could be RFMOs ( Regional Fisheries Management Organisations) , meaning different solutions for whaling in different parts of the world.
Of course I don't want to see ANY whales ( or any other ) animals to be killed at all , but that is totally unrealistic. The whaling nations won't stop whaling in the near future, let's face that, and look at the solution where the least whales will be killed. Is that an uncontrolled IWC or an RMS?
I'm confused by the moral dilemma emerging here.
If I understand the logic above, killing whales is bad (not a little bit bad, but a lot bad - a big no-no).
However, killing a few whales is OK - but only if it's done by locals (so 'few' is OK).
But -- how many is a few? Are we talking single digits here, or dozens. Clearly less than the 1000 that the Japanese want to kill each year.
So - where does moral outrage kick in: 10, 20 - less than a hundred?
Any why should Japanese deserve moral outrage when 'locals' do not? Or would 'locals' also be subject to this if they crossed the 'moral outrage' line ?
Help me out here - I'm trying to understand this sliding scale of moral outrage concept?
Well David,
We have already been through this " whales eat too much fish " discussion, but the quote " hungry whales" is from Remi's blog.
And if you want, I can post you some dozens of Norwegian articles and statements from the Parliament , where the Norwegians state that the whales are eating too much fish. As a matter of fact , they are using much worse words. Like whales are ruining coastal communities and whales are worse than pirate fishing in the Barents Sea.
Of course the articles are in Norwegian , but you can ask George to translate them for you.
Secondly, the issue with whales are eating too much fish is as well opposed by the Norwegian Society for Protection of Nature , that supports whale meat eating BUT is opposed to this whales eat too much fish argument.
Thanks ... but please don't pigeon-hole me as a greenie!
Ivan,
I hate political correctness and appreciate free speech and a hot discussion between greenies and neocons 😉 !!!!
"Pleeaaze Ivan, stop posting such stupid clichees!!!"
Sorry - I will try and be more politically correct in future. For a brief moment there I thought that blogging was all about the free exchange of ideas. My mistake.
Ann, again I find myself observing the only one saying things like "hungry whales" and "eat to much fish" is your good self.
> what about the complex interactions between species in the oceans?
Precautionary principle?
We know that whales can be harvested sustainably, but as we can't be sure that protecting whales while consuming other marine resources would not cause an imbalance in the ecosystem, we had better catch a sustainable number of whales to be sure. Besides, as I said, whales taste good.
Other cases of humans that are both compassionate about animals and humans are for example those M.Ds that conducted Magnetic Resonance Tomograhpy MRT, on my dog in a human hospital. There are as well examples of hippos undergoing MRT and CT in human hospitals in Sweden
Pleeaaze Ivan, stop posting such stupid clichees!!! Aren't there organisations such as " Doctors for Forests" and " Doctors against vivi-sections"????
"Such is the naked essence of environmentalism: it mourns the death of one whale or tree but actually welcomes the death of billions of people. A more malevolent, man-hating philosophy is unimaginable."
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8403&news_iv_ctrl=1021