Where I live, deer season is fairly close to a religious rite.
Schools, including most colleges and universities, shut down for the week, which also coincides with the Thanksgiving holiday in late November.
We always just called it the “deer season break.” Thanksgiving and turkeys were a second thought.
During this week, lots of white-tailed deer become jerky and steak and processed patties. Some with “big horns” become wall mounts.
It’s natural food, organic, locally grown, no antibiotics or artificial hormones.
Just white-tailed deer in its natural state.
I have no real problem with this yearly rite. Indeed, it’s one in which I participate.
So how on earth can I criticize the Faroese?
Who are the Faroese?
Well, Faroese is adjective given to inhabitants of the Faroe Islands in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean between the Shetland Islands and Iceland. The islands are under Danish sovereignty, and Faroese are descended from Norse ( and Irish and northern and insular Scots) who came there during the Dark Ages.
These islands are very limited in what they can produce.
They have always grazed sheep and cattle on their islands, but those animals alone could not sustain them.
So they turned to the sea for food.
Among the ocean animals they consume are pilot whales.
And herein lies the problem.
Now, the pilot whale harvest is strictly regulated. These harvests, called grinds ( pronounced “grinneds”), are strictly regulated affairs.
The whalers can only hunt whales that come close to shore. And they can only drive them when the weather conditions are right.
They drive them to shore using stones attached to lines, which are thrown behind the whales to make them move in the desired direction.
When the whales get close to the beach, they are hauled ashore using blunt gaffs. The gaffs grip the blowhole, and whale is hauled on land. Then, someone comes in with a specially designed whaling knife (Grindaknívur) that is used to sever the whale’s spinal cord, through a cut through the cervical vertebrae.
The pilot whale is normally dead within 30 seconds.
The whalers sometimes take bottlenose, white-sided, and white-beaked dolpins in this same manner, and if they happen to run into some harbor porpoises, they dispatch them with shotguns.
Everything about a grind is strictly regulated– with great emphasis on animal welfare and the notion of a sustainable harvest.
They aren’t trying to destroy pilot whale numbers.
That’s the last thing they want.
They want pilot whales to continue swimming in the ocean near their islands.
They want those whales there every bit as much as West Virginians want white-tailed deer around.
It’s certainly true that whale meat is very high in mercury and cadmium, and physicians now recommend that Faroese limit how much pilot whale they eat.
But it still can be eaten.
Of course, this sort of behavior incenses the various animal rights groups that pretend to be about conservation.
And here, I’m talking about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Now, you’d think that if a conservation society was opposed to a hunt, it would be because those animals are endangered.
Well, there is no evidence that long-finned pilot whales are endangered.
None.
The real issue for conservationists is that these whales have so much cadmium and mercury in them.
We should be really upset that our oceans are this polluted.
Real conservationists would be making common cause with the Faroese to make our seas freer of pollution. The Faroese have an actual reason to want the oceans cleaner. It’s not just a poorly thought out cause célèbre from someone in Los Angeles, London, or Toronto.
Ensuring that our oceans are safe to produce food for maritime peoples ought to be as much a human rights issue as it is an ecological one.
But that’s not what you’re getting from the Sea Shepherds or other self-styled conservation/animal rights organizations in the English-speaking world.
Never mind that in the English-speaking countries all sorts of ecological evils are being perpetrated.
Those issues are much harder to fundraise off of.
No, it’s much more lucrative to raise hell and lots of money about some people in a land you’ve never heard of, who you’ll never meet, and whose culture you’ll never try to understand.
But I’ve yet to see anything about the grinds that would upset me.
Because what I am actually seeing something very similar to deer season.
It’s a hunt for wild meat.
It’s not a drive to make a species extinct.
It’s about a people taking responsibility for their own food, and understanding that meat doesn’t come in plastic wrap.
It comes from a flesh-and-blood creature.
One that died so that you can live.
Nothing is more humbling than that.
What I see is a people reconnecting with both nature and their own past.
I don’t see murderous barbarians.
I see people comfortable in their own humanity and their own natures– from which they have happily chosen not to alienate themselves the way so many of us have.
They may make the waves crimson with blood when they kill the whales.
But in doing so, they reconnect with the old ways.
There was a time when all humans killed to survive.
Blood dripped from our faces and hands.
And we knew that the blood meant life.
Extinguishing the life of a prey species meant the satiation of hunger and good quality nutrition to power our growing brains.
But now, we’ve removed ourselves from the cycles of life and death.
We think we can legislate or moralize away all the death that happens so that we can eat well.
The truth is we can’t.
We can only make the death more humane.
We ultimately deny our humanity when we deny or try to find ways around this essential fact.
We’ve become too disconnected.
It’s a good thing there are still people like the Faroese who try to reconnect.
Even if they get defamed for it.
Good article, Scotty. I didn’t know about this.
Feeling tetchy?
No. Stroppy.
How does it taste?
I’ve heard it’s very good.
Small island people often resort to desperate measures for a reasonably balanced diet.
In our Hebrides we still have the guga hunt, a dangerous cliff-hanging enterprise, although the meat is no longer an absolute necessity for life. It used to be preserved to see the islanders through the w inter.
The AR people don`t like it at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/25/scotland-hebrides-gannet-hunt
Elizabeth
The AR people have obviously never been up close and personal with a gannet before. I’d kill them too.
I’ve only seen a dead one, wrapped in seaweed, on a beach in North Carolina.
They don’t want them eating cattle either (cow farts). Somehow everyone is supposed to be vegan and that isn’t going to impact the planet any. I once watched a documentary on the few traditional hunter/gatherers left in Africa. There were complaints about that. It’s very sanctimonious for these people to insist that everyone should live the way “they” do — since their lifestyle is only possible because of those who established civilization, etc by a very different lifestyle.
Yeah, some of them would like us all to subsist on fermented legumes (tofu, shoyu, etc) that are poisonous in their unprocessed form and hard to digest in large amounts. Too, many of them think that land used for grazing herbivores is being wasted when it could be used to grow crops–another example of how little they understand about nature, agriculture and the basics of food production.
Nicely put. I don;t always agree with you but you are on the money here, imo.
Thank you.
Way to go with the shock factor – when I opened the post I was momentarily taken aback. Of course, being a person who was raised in a family that hunted and enjoy the various meats of white-tailed deer myself I quickly came to my senses.
Your post was well researched and thought out and I can completely appreciate that. Within seconds I was considering the memories of my youth that included deer hanging after the hunt in my family’s yard or the neighbor’s yard. That meant food. Meat is expensive and if you do not have a lot of money hunting can mean that your family gets nutritious meats – instead of say, Spam.
And to anyone that argues that a 30 second window between knife blow and death for the whales should consider that not all deer hunters (or any hunters for that matter) are great shots all the time. Some hunters have to trail their bleeding quarry through the forest for hours.
I think there should be open season on all animal rights activists.
I don’t know if I’d go that far… LOL.
But I certainly wouldn’t let animal rights activists go unchallenged, which unfortunately our media allows them to do.
I saw that episode of Whale Wars. The s.shepherds left the Faroes (urgent business elsewhere) just before the showdown. It was clear that in a PR war against the Faroese the s.shepherds would have been well and truly beaten.
I`ve known a few Faroese, and I would back them against anything. You have to be tough and hard to survive there.
But I think they should forego the pilot whale tradition, simply because the toxins mentioned are cumulative poisons and very dangerous.
No tradition is worth your health.
Elizabeth
I certainly agree with that, but if you put aside the pollution, whale meat would about the best meat you could eat, very high in omega 3 fatty acids.
From what I’ve read, it’s okay to eat in moderation, and women who are pregnant or nursing are encouraged not to eat it at all.
We have the same issue with freshwater fish here, very high in mercury.
Whalemeat tastes good…many years since I had it, though.
Elizabeth.
That IS one thing that always bugged me. How can something that pregnant and nursing women should avoid possibly be safe for the rest of us? I know the focus is on developing fetuses and infants, but where are the studies saying that only development matters in this case and everything else is just hunky dory?
Our cells are always being replaced, so we are always re-developing in a sense. Also the danger of toxin consumption goes up, if the sea food you eat is higher up the food chain, due to the way fat stores toxins like PCBs and mercury. Humans are on top of the chain ultimately and many of us have quite a bit of extra fat; with asses that could be the EZ-storage center for these chemicals!
The Faroese really were destroying them in the PR war on that series. It was obvious.
10 – 20 years ago I would have argued that we already have 6 to 7 billion on the planet and the large mammal species of the world have an incredibly miniscule population by comparison – with even a few hundred thousand in total being quite a small percentage comparatively – so why risk what is left of an intelligent and highly social species for the sake of a dying cultural tradition; that just because something is “tradition” doesn’t make it right. That if life is THAT tough there and if people are trying to conserve marine mammals, maybe it’s just a part of human evolution that the Faroe children move to countries with better access to varied food resources and other opportunities, and that the Faroes will become yet another extinct culture. If their food sources were to become extinct, wouldn’t that inevitably happen anyway?
However………
Having hopped off the vegetarian bandwagon and now considering taking up a hunting rifle myself, I feel far more sympathetic to the Faroes, and the argument above is well – rounded and thought out. Deer in America count in the millions, far surpassing pilot whale populations, but that seems balanced out by the relatively low numbers of whales caught by Faroes. If there is truth to the rules of catching whales near shore and dispatching them quickly, there is little argument regarding the humaneness of hunting them. Orcas and the few other predators capable of preying upon them would not do them the service of killing them softly.
Pics like the one above are ripe for shock value; large mammals give off large amounts of blood. It’s that simple, but folks who get all their food from the grocery store won’t be thinking that way.
Also not helping the arguments for sane, practical hunters who care about conservation and do work to perfect their craft, so as to aim true and kill their prey with the first shot, are other TV shows that glorify hunting in such a way as to make all hunters seem like sadists who simply get a hard-on for killing.
“Yeeee haaaaaa!” said the Turtleman!
Not all hunters are humbled by the lives they take.
I know a hunter who makes almost every other weekend about a hunt. Most recently he bragged to me that he and his buds killed a “pickup truck’s worth of coyotes! The back was full!” You KNOW he doesn’t eat them. And in America, not a lot of people need fur to keep warm. There used to be a lot of passenger pigeons too. There seemed to be plenty to go around forever. WHere are they today?
I love canids. I wanted to gag. The guy dismissed it, saying they are vermin and there’s plenty to go around. The same guy said wolves, like grey wolves, are nothing but savage, wanton, bloodthirsty killers.
I raised an eyebrow as he yelled this out loud, wondering how he could not see the “wolf” in the mirror each morning.
I prefer memories of my Gotchscheerish grandfather (another dying culture, nearly dead in fact). He hunted deer. He took his fair share. He ate it all. He did so with quiet dignity. He taught me to shoot at age six. His hands shook at age 80 when he held a cup of tea, but he could still make the mark on a buck from, oh, I don’t know HOW many yards. He was that skilled, and he took it seriously. He never bragged. He had respect. I think he would have respected the Faroes and that sits well with me.
And more than anything, I agree, a bigger focus should be on ocean pollutants. I go to the trouble of checking sites like Slowfish.org and the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch for recommendations on what fish and shellfish are relatively safe. Without taking real action, there may not be whales, fish, or any other sea creatures for anyone, whether you live in a remote land with few other foods, or are just a greedy bloated fat-ass in the Hamptons with a yen for a 3 lb lobster. And what might remain may be too scary to chance eating.
I feel shooting a deer provides a leaner, CLEANER source of meat than fish at this point, the grocery store meat that is primarily grain fed/finished, with extra hormones and antibiotics added. I’m not waiting for science to prove or disprove whether or not this stuff does any harm to people. There are some studies suggesting both sides, and science has a way of dragging these things out for two or three lifetimes. Time to err on the side of my gut feelings on the issues.
Lastly, the Sea Shep folks are full of it! Their show is going down in popularity, or so I gathered, but a pic like above may be what they need to gain a ratings point.
Years ago I faced the ethical dilemma of eating meat that someone else slaughtered, butchered and packaged for me. So I decided to raise my own turkeys–if I couldn’t handle slaughtering them I was gonna go veg. It wasn’t easy to do, I didn’t enjoy it, it was messy and cold, but it made me aware of what both the critters and the folks who slaughter them for us go thru. (I had slaughtered chickens before but there is no comparison between killing a chicken and killing a 50+lb turkey. Later, I also helped a neighbor slaughter some of his sheep–same scenario.)
Having said all that, the meat was extraordinary–juicy and tender and the product of my own labor. These were free-range birds (enclosed only at night) who also got lots of garden veggie leftovers and insect pests thrown in.
As somebody who has done extensive ocean spearfishing (if not hunting), I’ve actually encountered people who ask why I kill the poor defenseless (and angry triggerfish are NOT defenseless) animals and instead buy them from the grocery store where they’re made . . ..
LMAO! Jessica, where do these people COME from? Oh you poor, poor girl! :)
Next to last paragraph correction: Deer and fish beat …”the grocery store meat…”
Dang. Sorry about that. I know you’re sick of grammatical errors. I don’t know why I didn’t catch that! NEED MORE COFFEE!
Got to agree to disagree with some of your comments on this one Scottie. To use the word season isn’t really correct. This practice is year round albeit with peak times but the activity is based on opportunity rather than a defined season.
The 30 second kill time is a supposed average though death can take in excess of 2 minutes. Michael Streil, my best mate took about that long to bleed out next to me and I can assure you from sickening experience that 2 minutes is a very long time to die. This 30 second figure does not account for the 20 or 30 plus minutes that the last pilot whales to be killed spend in absolute terror watching their pod mates being slaughtered. 30 seconds sanitizes the reality of the situation IMHO but understand that you may disagree. To re frame this matter would you find it acceptable for 60 dogs to be killed in such a manner…30 seconds would be a very long time for that 60th dog I am sure! Would a court of law find such a method of killing 60 dogs to be humane? It’s an interesting question. Numbers can so often hide the reality of a situation.
Regarding tradition …well using mobile phones, powerboats and jet ski’s just doesn’t cut it for me when people start sprouting traditional hunting.
The reality is that these people enjoy a standard of living that meets and even exceeds our own and their supermarkets offer the same multitude of choices that I am faced with when I go shopping. You raise a valid point re heavy metal poisoning but we must remember that each islander contributes just as much to this pollution to the ocean as anyone else that lives a 21st century lifestyle….perhaps more so due to their dependence on imported items that require polluting air or sea transport to their homes.
Killing intelligent animals to harvest toxic flesh makes little sense to me and to knowingly poison themselves and even worse their children in the name of culture or tradition lowers my opinion of these people more than any real or perceived blood lust or cruelty.
Enjoyed your post Scottie and it is always healthy to explore and discuss emotive issues such as this. The only absolute right and wrong that exists in such matters is the one we form ourselves rather than what is offered to us by others.
Too tired to spell check this so if I have errors please don’t make me sit in the corner with those crazy bulldog (toaddog) people!
They aren’t killing them indiscriminately. They have limits, and these limits are strictly regulated.
Lots of meat animals in this country are killed in a very similar fashion.
I don’t see any difference between this and deer season, where a lot deer take several shots to drop and more than 30 seconds to die. Not every shot is an instant kill. It’s supposed to be. And then we have archery seasons, where shots are even easier to foul up.
And the United States isn’t a poor country.
If you’re against this, you have to be against deer hunting, hunting in general, and meat consumption.
The only issues I see are the heavy metals issues.
I have a huge problem with the Sea Shepherds, particularly when Paul Watson misrepresents the numbers of these whales and says things like “They’re more intelligent than people.”
Both of those claims are absolute crap.
No credible authority thinks long-finned pilot whales are endangered.
And if they’re so smart, why haven’t they made it to the moon yet?
They’ve been around longer than us.
Hasn’t happened.
What are these strictly enforced limits Scottie as the latest data that I can find from the foreign service of the Faroe Islands asserts that their government has never felt it appropriate or necessary to set annual catch quotas or limits you refer to due to the opportunistic and localised nature of pilot whale drives. However this information dates from September 2011 so you must have some information on quotas that have been established since then? Please share them.
I don’t fully understand the reference to the USA not being a poor country as the Faroe Islands enjoy a standard of living that equals or exceeds our own if that is what you are getting at. It’s interesting to note that the USA has homeless people…the Faroe Islands do not.
I eat meat but that does not negate my right to wish to see any animal treated respectfully and humanely in the hours or minutes leading up to its death. If I kill something that is the way I behave and I expect the same from others. As I said earlier a 30 second death does not compensate an intelligent social animal for the hours of terror delivered prior to that death watching its friends and relatives being slaughtered around it. When the justification for that death is to provide a meat that at the advice of their own government can be eaten only once a month by a healthy adult and not at all by pregnant or breastfeeding women then I personally cannot justify such a waste of life. It is interesting to note that in 2008 the chief medical officer of the Faroes issued a press release stating people should not eat whale meat or blubber at all due to mercury levels and the link with the comparatively high levels of Parkinsons disease in the Faroes. Any intelligent (and suspicious) person would have to ask if the relaxation of these recommendation is based on science or politics!
If you are cool with the killing and consumption of these whales Scottie then that’s fine by me mate and if you have formed that opinion based on logic and not what someone else is telling you to think then that’s great too! I am not here to change your mind my primary interest is the truth and the presentation of all the facts in an open and honest way so people can decide for themselves. I believe that you operate at that same level.
I care little for what Paul Watson says, He says some smart things,he says some stupid things we all do I suppose.
Are dolphins intelligent social animals capable of complex emotional behavior… hell yeah. Are they more intelligent than us? Well if the definition of intelligent is flying to the moon hell no. if intelligent is the ability to live as a social animal and not over pollute the planet, overpopulate or create weapons that could destroy our planet 10 times over well they just might have the jump on us…but then again so does Willie!
http://elinbrimheimheinesen.blogspot.com/2012/05/10-arguments-against-pilot-whaling-and.html
By comparison, something like 20 percent of all white-tailed deer are killed by hunters every year in the United States.
Lots of good valid stuff there.
Scottie you stated “They aren’t killing them indiscriminately. They have limits, and these limits are strictly regulated.”
You still haven’t got these limits or quotas to us. Mate I trust your integrity and if you have these strictly enforced limits or quotas that you refer to again I ask ….please share them.
As I stated earlier the evidence I can find says there are no limits that are “strictly enforced” as you directly assert. The evidence I can find suggests the kill is regulated only by the opportunistic and random nature of hunting opportunities rather than your stated “strictly regulated limits”. This does not mean that killing techniques are not regulated as that is well documented.
I am saying I can find no evidence of your strictly enforced limits of quotas.
You are directly stating “They have limits, and these limits are strictly regulated”.
I am now asking please show me where I can find them? I am happy to be proven wrong and can see little sense in searching for these strictly enforced limits when you have them at hand!
The limits are set by the whaling foremen. The government also does consult with scientists to see what’s going on.
They don’t go around indiscriminately killing whales or driving them onto the beach.
You can read all about their regulations here:
http://www.whaling.fo/
They’ve actually reduced the killing time to 1-2 seconds!
So it’s not even an issue.
It’s just that they are killing cetaceans, that aren’t endangered.
I think it’s important to try to understand why other people do things.
If these were indigenous Australians killing dugongs, I bet you wouldn’t be complaining.
But these are white people, who are part of a modern advanced democracy.
They just happen to have a dietary tradition you find unpalatable.
I could say the same about certain East Asian cultures and their consumption of dogs.
I can tell you that if they were shown definite proof that their whale harvest could be affecting pilot whale numbers, they would ban it.
In my part of the world, if the deer numbers become low, people voluntarily stop shooting does, so that the population might increase the next year.
So what you are saying is that there is no strictly enforced Quota that you can refer me to! I looked for it on the link you gave and cant find it.
You are very wrong in assuming I would support the hunting of dugong by aboriginal Australians. This has nothing to do with racial stereotypes and it is offensive to drag it down to that level, I would have expected better from you Scottie.
You probably do not know this but I am an officially adopted and named Mandubarra man and that adoption was awarded to me due to my advocacy for the rights of local Mandubarra aboriginals under very adverse circumstances. I have never supported dugong or turtle hunting and despite this am much loved and respected by my mob which is something I am proud of and value greatly. Mandubarra people currently have a TUMRA agreement that protects turtle and dugong with zero take in Mandubarra sea country and naturally I support this. Other TUMRAS support limited quotas on the take of Turtles and Dugong. Mandubarra people have a dynamic and healthy culture that is not defined or limited by the act of traditional hunting for marine mammals and reptiles.
I can assure you that many traditional owners that I know would find the killing of so many creatures for meat which is toxic to be unacceptable. Not bad hunting logic from a people who were living in the stone age 150 years ago as hunter gatherers.
So why are you being so judgmental toward the Faroese?
It’s because of the propaganda.
These people can’t defend themselves. I’m not saying you’re racist. I’m saying there is a profound double standard here. A double standard that I categorically reject.
This is a sustainable harvest. End of story. Every objective expert who has looked at it says so.
I don’t wish to have further conversation about “morality” of taking the life of an animal that isn’t endangered.
It’s just not worth the time or energy to worry about. Especially when there are animals that are really going extinct and animals that are really being abused.
Plus, I’m sure you’re aware that you wouldn’t have saltwater crocodiles in your country if they weren’t initially raised for skins and meat.
If that hadn’t happened, they would have gone extinct.
I don’t think you got the point of the Quammen book we discussed several years ago.
People who have an economic stake in an animal are more likely to preserve.
And guess what?
That’s exactly what we have here.
And they do want to preserve them.
But they also want to utilize the resource.
This is something that Paul Watson, who has never done anything useful for society, is using to raise money off of the gullible.
It’s not an issue. The only controversy should be about heavy metals in the whales’ flesh.
Nothing else.
You seem convinced that if I have a difference of opinion to yours that I have somehow been brainwashed by the media!
To be honest I don’t watch television though I will watch DVD’s of my choice so have not been brainwashed by such shows. Never seen an episode of whale wars, American Idol, Australian Idol, Bolivian Idol etc etc and really don’t feel any poorer for it!
What I do find worrying is that when another person says something that is untrue you attack and ridicule them and yet when you say something that is untrue you won’t take responsibility for it and sidestep the issue. That is the double standard I find worrying Scottie as it makes some of your very good comments and posts just a little less credible in my eyes.
My objection to the grind is that the logic that is used to justify it is flawed and as someone who has a logical mind I cannot support violence that is unjustified.
Meat is the reason for the grind according to the Faroe government. They say it is not about a tradition or some coming of age thing for young men etc etc. Yet the same government admits that this meat is unhealthy to eat and should only be eaten once a month at the most. Women are told not to eat the stuff at all until they have had all of their children..hell that inspires confidence. In my own country it would be unlawful to sell this meat in a supermarket due to the level of contamination. The rationale for the grind is illogical and again I don’t give a rats ass for what Paul Watson or anyone else says. You may see things differently and that is ok with me Scottie, I am not trying to change the way you think just offering an alternative way of looking at things that people can accept or reject. I assure you I won’t take it personally or lose sleep if no one likes my take on this issue. Debate is a good thing and when we lose sight of this we rob no one but ourselves.
Re the crocodiles the very reason that estuarine crocodiles and freshwater (Johnstone’s) crocodiles were faced with extinction was the over exploitation by people hunting them for skins. These people wanted to utilise this natural resource and kept killing them till their stocks were greatly depleted. There were no quotas or limits. They had an economic stake in the species survival but that didn’t stop them from pushing both species to the brink of extinction.
Crocodile populations have recovered not because of farming or reintroductions into the wild but because in 1974 crocodiles were made a protected species in Australia and their numbers have slowly recovered ever since.
Saving the crocodile from extinction had nothing to do with croc farming Scottie and I have no idea where you got that idea. Proof of my assertion is the insignificant amount of commercial freshwater crocodile farms …both recently and historically…yet this species took the greatest hammering from hunting due to its habits and habitat and of course its slower growth rate. These freshwater crocodile populations are now in much better condition simply because our government had the sense to stop people who did not have the sense to stop by themselves. People that had a stake in the survival of the crocodiles yet still pushed them to the brink of extinction.
It is commonly parroted in the TV shows “Crocodile Hunter” and “Going Wild” with Steve Irwin and Rob Bredl for North American broadcast that when crocodiles were on the verge of extinction due to over-hunting, their fathers set up crocodile-farms to maintain the population.
So, blame Steve Irwin and Rob Bredl for the “misinformation”.
“People who have an economic stake in an animal are more likely to preserve”
Elephant?
Rhino?
Elizabeth
Which inhabits countries filled with impoverished people who turned to poaching for an income.
For some reason, when things go to shit for humans and living standards are low, animal rights and welfare takes the back door and do not exist. It is almost like a rule– people whose lives are down the toilet often push animals to extinction. We saw this in Europe with several mammal species either going extinct or on the verge of it at the turn of the 20th century when it entered a severe depression in 1890s followed by the Great Depression.
It is commonly parroted in the TV shows “Crocodile Hunter” and “Going Wild” with Steve Irwin and Rob Bredl for North American broadcast that when crocodiles were on the verge of extinction due to over-hunting, their fathers set up crocodile-farms to maintain the population.
So, blame Steve Irwin and Rob Bredl for the “misinformation”.
So Dave what you are telling us here is that Scotties view on crocodile farms saving the crocs in Australia is the product of him being brainwashed by them damn greenie conservationist television shows? Isn’t that what Scottie was concerned was happening to everyone else over the grind!
I like Scottie I like his site and that is why I continue to visit it regularly. I also like truth and logic and in these days of the internet there is truth and logic out there if you are keen on digging it up. There is no need to blame misinformation on someone else. There are many issues I have no opinions about as I am not prepared to research them myself and I refuse to accept the views and propaganda offered by the media!
What I find commendable in fact, is that the Faroes do such a good job of self-regulating. As you mentioned, the IWC does not consider itself a small cetacean expertise center. As such they do not do the regulating of the pilot whale populations.
From what I read I have not seen any mention, so far, of the exportation of pilot whale meat; not even to countries like Japan that do seem to accept its consumption ( unlike modern America). If they only keep it for themselves, I imagine that removes the temptation to take more. It’s about need, not greed.
Also is a good part of what makes many deer hunters good conservationists. Not only are the takes regulated ( though not self regulated) but it’s illegal to sell the deer meat.
I’d outlaw keeping whales in captivity long before I’d outlaw this particular way of hunting them.
Same here! I have real problems with keeping cetaceans in captivity.
But I don’t have any problem with harvesting a few of them for food.
“I could say the same about certain East Asian cultures and their consumption of dogs”
WHOA! Whoa whoa! From what little I’ve seen East Asians have far less regard for the dogs they consume than the Faroes do for the whales they hunt. And that’s not about racism. That’s reality.
I had several classmates in Grad school at Queens College that saw the horrors we so often do see in media, of dog crammed into cages, miserable, awaiting their fate. Not to mention beaten for more “vital” meat.
I also grew up in Flushing, Queens. The Queens borough of NYC is said to be the most culturally diverse area of the entire USA. Flushing has become the new “Chinatown” though it has a huge Korean population. My entire neighborhood was transformed from German, Irish, Jewish and Italian…and African American and a few Latino cultures, to overhwelmingly Chinese and Korean, with a few others like Thai and Vietnamese thrown in for good measure. We have tons of stores down entire blocks with signs that are not even in English. Despite that this is illegal, it is overlooked due to political shenanigans.
So the immigrants I shared classrooms with knew what they spoke of when they spoke of dog consumption, and to a lesser extent, cat consumption ( a well known restaurant by me was shut down by the health dept when they found cats in the freezer).
Sidebar: A creature does not have to have my exact neocortex for me to consider it intelligent. There are levels of intelligence. If the human race had halted with someone like myself regarding intelligence, we would have never made it to the moon at all. Call me crazy but I’d like to think I am still worthy of some respect and a quick death someday with relatively little suffering.
During shark week one documentary I saw this weekend cited 70 MILLION sharks having been slaughtered simply for their fins. Lord knows what ecosystem impacts this may have now, or down the road if it continues. These animals are also often finned while completely alive and conscious, then dropped back in the water to die. Sharks may not have the exact nervous system of humans but I doubt that what they are feeling is good or neutral. At any rate I find this situation far more heinous than what the Faroes do. Yet it still doesn’t get quite the attention that the whale harvests do because there is no huge pool of visible blood for good television.
And since all traditions have their beginnings, I imagine the folks who have been finning can now use the “tradition” argument because this has been going on for awhile. I’d be angry if they have or did, because I would not want to see the Faroes get lumped into the same category by people who get PETA newsletters.
I’m actually quite opposed to what we’re doing to sharks.
It’s not sustainable. I am okay with a little sport fishing for common species, but what’s being done for shark fin soup is an unbelievable outrage.
I also am quite ticked that the Western Australian government was actually considering reopening the great white shark harvest.
Those really big aharks can’t be sustainably harvested.