Whale Wars

[strickj]

Guys, there is an international ban on whaling.

Japan has effectively found a loophole around the ban by calling it research.

Even Japan says this, BTW...

The Canberra panel said the activity violates the 46-member Antarctic Treaty System, to which Japan belongs.

New Zealand said it will decide in the coming weeks whether to abandon diplomatic efforts and also file a case in the International Court of Justice against Japan.

Japan's foreign ministry said Australia's decision was regrettable while negotiations were going on within the International Whaling Commission (IWC) on disputes over whale hunts.

"We will continue to explain that the scientific whaling that we are conducting is lawful in accordance with Article 8 of the international convention for the regulation of whaling," Hidenobu Sobashima, the foreign ministry's deputy press secretary, said.

"If it goes to the court, we are prepared to explain that."

Sobashima said the issue "shouldn't jeopardise the overall good relations between Japan and Australia".

Echoing the sentiment, Stephen Smith, the Australian foreign minister, said the two countries have agreed to treat the matter as "an independent legal arbitration of a disagreement between friends".

Japan gets around an international ban on commercial whaling by arguing that it harpoons hundreds of whales each year for scientific research.

The IWC is separately trying to resolve long-running disputes over the hunting of whales by several countries despite a 25-year-old moratorium on hunts.

[1gewehr]

Minke whales are not on anyone's endangered species list. The Japanese get about 500 each year from an estimated population of over 500,000. Iceland, Japan, North and South Korea, Canada, the USA, Indonesia, Russia, St. Vincent in the Caribbean, and Norway are most of the countries which still hunt whales of various species (none of which are endangered).

Sea Shepherd is a terrorist organization which has performed many illegal and dangerous acts including: "scuttling and disabling whaling vessels at harbor, intervening in Canadian seal hunts, ramming other vessels, trying to temporarily blind or disorient whalers with a laser device,[/url] throwing bottles of foul-smelling butyric acid onto vessels at sea,[5] boarding of whaling vessels while at sea, and seizure and destruction of drift nets at sea".

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The reason they target the Japanese is NOT because they kill more whales than anyone else. It's because in the Southern Ocean, it's just them and the Japanese where the terrorists can manage the story and not be interfered with by anyone else. If they attacked any other countries' ships, they would immediately be arrested, assets seized, and tried for assault. By only operating far from anyone else, they can tell their side of the story without contradiction.

One of their common weapons is a prop-fouling rope reinforced with steel rope. In the southern ocean, a disabled ship can easily be broached by waves and capsize. In 35degree water, this would cause many deaths. They have also used limpet mines to sink ships at harbor. They have been lucky not to have killed anyone yet, but have injured Japanese sailors with butyric acid.

These people are well-funded. When the Ady Gil was sunk in a collision with a Japanese ship (no blame assigned to either ship), fund-raisers sent over $3million in one week to Sea Shepherds to replace the ship. Most of their supporters are radical liberals in the entertainment industry, but Animal Planet also pays them an undisclosed amount for each episode of 'Whale Wars'.

[SHbicycle]

Bull crap.

The Japanese and Norwegians are in direct violation of international anti-whaling agreements that their own governments signed off on.

These "eco terrorists" are the only ones with any balls out there at all, and I wish them all the best of luck.

- OS

Who cares Capt. Kirk will come back in a 100 years and save them anyway.

That said lets go kill us some Polar Bears.

[Guest clownsdd]

Governments that are party to the Antarctic Treaty and its Protocol on Environmental Protection implement the articles of these agreements, and decisions taken under them, through national laws. These laws generally apply only to their own citizens,

[strickj]

Minke whales are not on anyone's endangered species list. The Japanese get about 500 each year from an estimated population of over 500,000. Iceland, Japan, North and South Korea, Canada, the USA, Indonesia, Russia, St. Vincent in the Caribbean, and Norway are most of the countries which still hunt whales of various species (none of which are endangered).

Sea Shepherd is a terrorist organization which has performed many illegal and dangerous acts including: "scuttling and disabling whaling vessels at harbor, intervening in Canadian seal hunts, ramming other vessels, trying to temporarily blind or disorient whalers with a laser device,throwing bottles of foul-smelling butyric acid onto vessels at sea,[5] boarding of whaling vessels while at sea, and seizure and destruction of drift nets at sea".

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The reason they target the Japanese is NOT because they kill more whales than anyone else. It's because in the Southern Ocean, it's just them and the Japanese where the terrorists can manage the story and not be interfered with by anyone else. If they attacked any other countries' ships, they would immediately be arrested, assets seized, and tried for assault. By only operating far from anyone else, they can tell their side of the story without contradiction.

One of their common weapons is a prop-fouling rope reinforced with steel rope. In the southern ocean, a disabled ship can easily be broached by waves and capsize. In 35degree water, this would cause many deaths. They have also used limpet mines to sink ships at harbor. They have been lucky not to have killed anyone yet, but have injured Japanese sailors with butyric acid.

These people are well-funded. When the Ady Gil was sunk in a collision with a Japanese ship (no blame assigned to either ship), fund-raisers sent over $3million in one week to Sea Shepherds to replace the ship. Most of their supporters are radical liberals in the entertainment industry, but Animal Planet also pays them an undisclosed amount for each episode of 'Whale Wars'.

Wrong. Minke whales is just one of which they hunt, for one.

For two, they are a protected species Minke Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Wow! It seems we have some whale counters on here. These people and the science that backs up their arguments about the numbers of whales in the oceans must have "proved" everything, to your satisfaction. Buy into that crap, probably because it's on TV, must be right. We are all a bunch of evil that just destroy the globe. The "Endangered Species" list is decided by who? A bunch of politically motivated, touchy-feely, radical leftists who want to rule your lives. Buy into something other than a white haired phony wuss. Dumb TV show.

Edited July 12, 2010 by 6.8 AR

[Guest Moody]

I really am not one for supporting these Environmentalists, but if that's their crusade, then whatever - I really don't care. What I do care about, is the laughing-stock that they make of themselves, everytime they hit the water. It's pretty evident that around 10% of the crew actually knows what they're doing, and has maritime experience. The rest - nope. It's laughable at first, but the more that I see it, the more that I worry - these people are going to be killed, doing something stupid, because they're out there with hardly any experience, and don't realize the inherent danger of putting themselves in some of the situations that they do.

I've never seen such a disorganized bunch of people in my life, honestly.

[Defender]

I have seen lots of criminals that some people thought had big CJs....but is it that or is it stupidity?

[Guest grays]

lol just watch how they whalers add insult to injury after they bust the ship up. They spray em in the face hahah

[BBdown]

I hope all of these Sea Shepherd idiots get what they deserve and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Who made them the mall cops of the oceans? Trying to disable/sink vessels in the middle of the ocean with PEOPLE on board. Seriously. I hope the Japanese blow them out of the water. These idiots have zero authority to do anything. How would you Sea Shepherd lovers like it when a group of concerned citizens pepper your windsheild with paintballs then lay spike strips in front of you because you were breaking the law doing 76 mph in a 70. "Oh well, um all the cops were busy and unalbe to enforce the speed limit so we thought we would help out with enforcement." Seriously???? You would cheer for them???? Vigilante law and order. Sounds great.

And realize also that most of the people that donate funds to support these idiots are anti 2A and anti hunting. Congratulations and thanks for supporting the very people that oppose what most of us so strongly believe in.

[BBdown]

Wrong. Minke whales is just one of which they hunt, for one.

For two, they are a protected species Minke Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries

Minke whale populations are suggested to be around 760,000 by both whaling and nonwhaling countries. Hardly endangered. NOAA and the MMPA only pertains to U.S. waters and it's citizens.

Taken from the link you provided: The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) [pdf] was enacted on October 21, 1972. All marine mammals are protected under the MMPA. The MMPA prohibits, with certain exceptions, the "take" of marine mammals in U.S. waters and by U.S. citizens on the high seas, and the importation of marine mammals and marine mammal products into the U.S.

IWC like someone has already stated is basically a volunteer organization several other countries opted out and have set reasonalbe quotas for themselves. Whales are also harvested by several native tribes around the globe for their meat.

[Motasyco]

Japan is taking some action.

Japan deports convicted NZ anti-whaling activist - Yahoo! News

Japan deports convicted NZ anti-whaling activist

TOKYO – Japan deported a New Zealand activist convicted of assault and obstruction after he attempted to stop the annual Japanese whale hunt.

Peter Bethune, 45, who clambered aboard a Japanese whaler in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean in February, was detained aboard the ship and arrested when it returned to Japan. Earlier this week, a Tokyo court sentenced the former member of conservation group Sea Shepherd to two years in prison but suspended the sentence.

On Friday evening, Bethune was escorted by immigration officers onto an Air New Zealand flight bound for Auckland.

Japan each year hunts hundreds of mostly minke whales — which are not an endangered species — in Antarctic waters. U.S.-based Sea Shepherd has been actively protesting Japan's whaling trips for years, often scuffling with whalers at sea.

Japan conducts whale hunts in the region as part of a research program, an allowed exception to an international whaling ban. But Sea Shepherd and other critics say it is a cover for commercial whaling, noting nearly all the meat ends up in restaurants.

Bethune was convicted of several offenses, including assault for throwing bottles of rancid butter at whaling ships, trespassing, vandalism and possession of a knife. He slashed a protective net around the Shonan Maru 2 with a knife to board the ship from a Jet Ski.

In a tearful closing statement at his trial in June, Bethune apologized for the trouble and said he never intended to hurt anyone.

During earlier trial sessions, Bethune said he just wanted to confront the Japanese ship's captain and hand him a $3 million bill for the destruction of the Ady Gil, a Sea Shepherd vessel that sank when the two boats collided in January.

Sea Shepherd announced during the trial it would not let Bethune participate in further protests, but said Thursday that was a tactic to help him avoid prison time and he's free to rejoin.

Japan, Norway and Iceland hunt whales under exceptions to a 1986 moratorium by the International Whaling Commission. Japan's whaling program involves large-scale expeditions to the Antarctic Ocean, while other whaling countries mostly stay along their own coasts.

Confrontations between Sea Shepherd boats and Japanese vessels have at times turned violent. Activists try to obstruct whaling ships by cutting them off, dangling ropes in the water to snarl their propellers, or throwing containers of rancid butter. The whalers have responded with water canons and sonar devices to disorient the environmentalists.

Edited July 13, 2010 by Daniel

[Motasyco]

Well, that didn't post very well.

[Guest clownsdd]

Ya did fine....lol

[Oh Shoot]

...Trying to disable/sink vessels in the middle of the ocean with PEOPLE on board.....

Whales are better than people.

- OS

[Smith]

Wow! It seems we have some whale counters on here. These people and the science that backs up their arguments about the numbers of whales in the oceans must have "proved" everything, to your satisfaction. Buy into that crap, probably because it's on TV, must be right. We are all a bunch of evil that just destroy the globe. The "Endangered Species" list is decided by who? A bunch of politically motivated, touchy-feely, radical leftists who want to rule your lives. Buy into something other than a white haired phony wuss. Dumb TV show.

Kinda like the whole Polar bear issue. Never mind there are more now than ever before, we're just going to leave them on the endangered species list. Canada's growing polar bear population 'becoming a problem,' locals say

Polar bears, the lumbering carnivores of the arctic, continue to be the poster bear – er, child – for global warmers everywhere who are convinced the baby seal munchers are being driven to extinction by man’s irresponsible release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Next to whales, the cuddly fur balls enjoy a special place on the “Animals to Love” list. Grown-ups adore them (provided it’s from a safe distance), and grade-school kids who can’t find Greenland or Manitoba on a map raid their penny jars to save them.

But are the denizens of the deep north facing extinction? Are they in desperate need of saving? It depends on who you ask.

According to the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG), the polar bear population is on shaky ground – actually, ice – because of warmer temperatures and shrinking ice floe in the Arctic triggered by the favorite bad-guy of the green movement – anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming.

In a news release issued after its conference last July, the PBSG concluded that only one of 19 total polar bear subpopulations is currently increasing, three are stable and eight are declining. Data was insufficient to determine numbers for the remaining seven subpopulations. The group estimated that the total number of polar bears is somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000. (Estimates of the population during the 1950s and 1960s, before harvest quotas were enacted, range from 5,000 to 10,000.)

However, the PBSG quickly acknowledged that “the mixed quality of information on the different subpopulations means there is much room for error in establishing” the numbers, and “the potential for error, given the ongoing and projected changes in habitats and other potential stresses, is cause for concern.”

Despite those problems, the PBSG said it is optimistic that “humans can mitigate the effects of global warming and other threats to the polar bears.”

Not so fast. According to a U.S. Senate and Public Works Committee report, the “alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. Those predictions are being “challenged by scientists and forecasting experts,” said the report.

Those challenges, supported by facts on the ground, including observations from Inuit hunters in the region, haven’t stopped climate fear-mongers at the U.S. Geological Survey from proclaiming that future sea ice conditions “will result in the loss of approximately two-thirds of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21st century.”

Such sky-is-falling rhetoric brings smiles to the Inuit population of Canada’s Nunavut Territory. They, too, know how to count, and they claim the bear population is stable or on the rise in their own backyard. Polar bears may be on the decline in some areas, but during their frequent visits to Inuit towns and outposts they rarely decline an easy meal from the local dump or a poorly secured garbage can.

Harry Flaherty, chair of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board in the capital of Iqaluit, says the polar bear population in the region, along the Davis Strait, has doubled during the past 10 years. He questions the official figures, which are based to a large extent on helicopter surveys.

“Scientists do a quick study one to two weeks in a helicopter, and don’t see all the polar bears. We’re getting totally different stories [about the bear numbers] on a daily basis from hunters and harvesters on the ground,” he says.

Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a biologist who has been researching polar bear populations in Canada’s Nunavut Territory for 35 years, seems to agree. “The study estimates from the Iqaluit area agree with those of local hunters, although the accuracy of the counts is doubtful in some areas,” he says.

Gabriel Nirlungayuk, director of wildlife for Nunavut Tuungavik Inc., is another doubter who questions the accuracy of helicopter surveys. “Helicopters have many limitations, including fuel capacity. They can’t go far out into the open water,” he says. But hunters crisscrossing the area by dog team, snowmobile or boat “are seeing polar bears where scientists and helicopters are not traveling.”

Forty years ago, old-timers living in the area around Hudson Bay were lucky to see a polar bear, Nirlungayuk says. “Now there are bears living as far south as James Bay.”

The growing population has become “a real problem,” especially over the last 10 years, he says. During the summer and fall, families enjoying outdoor activities must be on the look-out for bears. Many locals invite along other hunters for protection.

Last year, in Pelly Bay, all the bears that were captured were caught in town, Nirlungayuk says. “You now have polar bears coming into towns, getting into cabins, breaking property and just creating havoc for people up here,” he says.

In the Western Hudson Bay area, where harvest quotas were reduced by 80 percent four years ago, communities are complaining about the number of polar bears. “Now people can look out the window and see as many as 20 polar bears at the ice-flow edge,” Flaherty says.

During a public hearing last September focusing on the polar bear population in the Baffin Bay region, hunters reported more sightings of females with three cubs. The normal litter is one or two. Flaherty, himself a serious hunter, says the abundant food supply – primarily baby ring seals – in the area is responsible for the bigger litters.

The on-the-ground reports, if accurate, seem to contradict the official story of the beleaguered polar bear. According to the standard theory, warmer temperatures (caused by human CO2 emissions) are shrinking the ice floe, the polar bear’s main hunting ground, forcing populations to compete for a diminishing food supply. Warmer temperatures also are to blame for the loss of thicker “multi-year ice.”

Flaherty and many others disagree with the official story. “We are aware there are changes in the weather, but it is not affecting the daily life of the animals,” he says. “Polar bears hunt in the floe-edge areas, on newly formed ice, and in the fiords in search of baby seals. They don’t hunt in the glaciers [areas of multi-year ice].

“We’re not seeing negative effects on the polar bear population from so-called climate change and receding ice,” he says. He is convinced that some scientists are deliberately “using the polar bear issue to scare people” about global warming, a view widely shared by many Nunavut locals.

It has warmed in the region and, as Taylor confirms, the summer sea-ice boundary has been slowly contracting for the last 30 years and experienced a big decline in 2007 – an event that was widely reported as evidence of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming.

However, the shrinking sea ice does not affect polar bear numbers uniformly, he emphasizes. “Even in adjacent sub-populations, the impact may vary,” he says. “Every population is ecologically different. Some populations may actually benefit from less sea ice.”

Taylor downplays the theory that CO2 is the culprit responsible for warmer Arctic temperatures. Other factors, including wind-driven ice movement, shifting ocean currents, reduced albedo effect (less snow-cover resulting in less heat reflection) and increased water vapor (the major greenhouse gas) from a growing expanse of ice-free water, leading to warmer air temperatures, may be influencing the local climate, he says.

“Arctic warming is real, but just because it’s warmer doesn’t mean it’s caused by carbon dioxide. I don’t think CO2 is the main factor causing it.”

He notes that the current model forecasts, which show elevated CO2 levels triggering global temperature increases, don’t agree with the contemporary temperature record. “When predictions don’t match the observations, scientists should say ‘there is something wrong here.’”

The IPCC models, he claims, are “multiplying the effect of CO2 to obtain the temperature increases they predict,” a criticism shared by others in the scientific community who have openly accused modelers of data manipulation.

“The idea that these models can make predictions 50 to 100 years into the future seems, frankly, absurd to me.”

Both Nirlungayuk and Flaherty ridicule media claims that the polar bear is threatened or on the verge of extinction.

“Polar bears are very intelligent . . . they have adapted through many climate changes for thousands of years. They are not going to wait around for the ice to freeze to start hunting. They live on more than just seals,” says Nirlungayuk.

Adds Flaherty: “At the end of the day, the King of the North will always be here. When we hear that polar bears are headed towards extinction, we just kind of smile at ourselves.”

[Guest 6.8 AR]

All for the sake of Al Gore and his 'friends of the earth' kind:koolaid:

[Guest SUNTZU]

[Rightwinger]

I think her boyfriend is in the other room polishing Excaliber

[BBdown]

Whales are better than people.

- OS

Wow! Better how? Better tasting?? Better in bed? Please enlighten us

[Guest REDDOG79]

The Japanese need to load Torpedoes and put these Eco Terrorist nut cases on the bottom of the Antartic Ocean. I loathe these groups like Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace.

[dlm37015]

It is a fact Whales numbers are getting smaller there is an international ban on whaling .l think the world needs to look at what the Japanese does to sea life some of the other things are just as bad .This comming from someone that hunted spotted owls with a passion in the 80s

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Yep, facts come in all shapes and sizes. I'm sure, because that show on NGEO said it, makes it a

fact. The show I watched last night also said the

oceans are dying because of our aluminum cans

on the ocean floor. Yep, I believed it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Oh Shoot]

Wow! Better how? Better tasting?? Better in bed? Please enlighten us

And WAY better than some people in particular.

"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."

- OS

[Rightwinger]

And WAY better than some people in particular.

"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."

- OS

Or knows that he's doing so and recognizes it in others