Angry angry ocean karma

We've had some heated debates at the circus over whaling. Should they, shouldn't they, who decides, how good is the evidence, how many whales, if any, are safe to harvest. And why Japan bothers to keep on pretending their whaling is for scientific research. Why don't they just join Iceland and Norway and hunt openly, instead of using cowardly loopholes built into the International Whaling Commission. Oh right, because they've taken control of the IWC by purchasing votes from tiny nations, so they might as well stick with the system and change it from the inside.

Whatever. Japan convened an IWC meeting last week hoping change the now 20 year-old moratorium on commercial whale hunting. Only 34 of IWC member countries attending, with anti-whaling countries such as Canada, the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand boycotting the proceedings.

Days later a Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica, the Nisshin Maru, caught fire. The whale processing deck was mostly  destroyed. One crew member died. The "scientific" whale hunt for the season might be abandoned. The cause of the fire is unknown.

Now I wouldn't put it past those crazy Sea Shepherd guys in New Zealand, even though the jury is still out over who rammed who in last Monday's "encounter" between the activists and whalers. But I don't think this was malice or coincidence. I think it was karma.

Which makes me crazy. But I think it's catching. Because you know why the news agencies have churned out a million blow-by-blow stories  - on the fire, the rescue mission (and rejection of Greenpeace assistance), the engine restart, the engine turn-over but still dead in the water, the possible oil spill and subsequent penguin colony destruction, the winch status, which determines whether the ship can haul whales out of the water - because it has this strange feeling of justice (at least to those already convinced that scientific whaling is total crap). And justice tastes good. Kind of sweet. Kind of like this quote from New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark: 

"I think [the Nisshin Maru] needs to be towed back to where it came from," she said. "And one would hope that the fact that this season has been so ghastly for the Japanese whaling fleet … might give cause for reflection on whether they come back again."

It's unfortunate that my brain has to kick in and ruin the happy smug-party. Because rejoicing in this event only shows how divided the argument really is. A broken IWC is bad for both sides of the debate and especially bad for whale populations. "Scientific" whaling is not the answer; plus it gives Japan even LESS credibility about being a responsible whaling nation IF the anti-whalers were to try and talk about commerical harvests. And the anti-whalers need to pull their head from their bums and realize that lots of whaling is already happening and if they'd talk reasonably maybe we could all regulate it better. You know, learn something. Likewise, objecting out of the moratorium, like Iceland and Norway did, won't help us come to a solution for this uniquely international resource problem.

We need some sort of international consortium that cannot be bought or riddled with loopholes to figure out what, exactly, to do. We need a powerful scientific committee to take charge and say how many of which species, of what age/size/sex can be safely taken from which populations (and then shave off a few for good measure).

Until then, I guess I'll settle for the crippling of the Japanese whaling fleet.

Comments

[MDude]

If you did want to scientificly study whales, couldn't you give them something like those eatable cameras in pills, so you could their insides while they're alive and working, instead of splayed out on a dock or something?

[Peter McGrath]

If that karma's to your taste, try 'In the heart of the Sea' by Nathanial Philbrick. Great name, great book. An American whaling ship was rammed and sunk by a lust-maddened sperm whale. The crew survived in the whatleboats and spent a long time adrift. Some made it to a desert island where they died, some drifted for a long time, ate the crew who died and eventually drew lots, executed a suvivor and ate him. A couple were rescued, very emaciated, crouching at either end of the boat with a horde of bones.

[Anna]

Heh heh. That does sound good.

[oleg]

Nice blog. Just found, but feel I'm gonna visit it regularly.

Back to whaling... I love everything, not the claim to return to though limited still commercial whaling. Consensus is good, but that would mean to return to the state of affairs of 70s and early 80s. Usual state of affairs at IWC.

I suggest to work for the things what they should be, not what they got used to be. Therefore, make IWC an International Whale Conservancy. They don't even need to change abbreviation.

[macgruder]

One Minke whale consumed rather than the equivalent amount of beef consumed saves approximately 1,000,000 square feet of rainforest . Minke whales are not endangered as opposed to animal going extinct *daily* due to the beef trade.

"And the anti-whalers need to pull their head from their bums and realize that lots of whaling is already happening and if they'd talk reasonably maybe we could all regulate it better. You know, learn something. Likewise, objecting out of the moratorium, like Iceland and Norway did, won't help us come to a solution for this uniquely international resource problem."

This is one of the few smart comments I've heard about this debate. We need to recognize that the 'scientific' catch is Japan's reaction to the IWC being hijacked as a total-protection organisation as opposed to the sustainable whaling that is in its charter.

[oleg]

macgruder,

the question has never been posed in a way like whaling is instead of farming. So called scientific whaling gives Japan few thousand tonnes of whale meat compared to hundreds of thousands of tonnes of beef. Now divide the latter by the former and you get that they should multiply their minke quota by 100. Were the coefficient to be 10, then still they would need to hunt about 10.000 of whales per year. With that kind of approach whales are gonna be extinct in some decades.

Farming is a huge threat to rainforest and environment, but it is the farming that should be made more sustainable, not the whaling. It's easier to solve such problems on the land, than in the sea.

What is more interesting is that even Japanese don't treat whale meat as a good source of food. Why would they spend it for dog meals then?

[Jah]

Ok. Iceland, Norway and Japan have weak whaling policys. Yet no one mentions that US whaling in late1800s-1900s killed a humongous portion of the stock. And hey, what about the sonar used by the military. Just stick your head underwater when a motor boat is going by and listen to how sound travels. Imagine the sonic seismic boom of a nuclear sub not only effecting whales brains but also effecting worldwide whale communication.

Jahknow