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Japan whaling kills 122 pregnant whales for ‘research’

Deleted member 15428

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
13,464
It's kind of a continuation of this thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/ja...s-on-antarctic-hunt-devoid-of-protests.33374/ but this time we know many of those whales were pregnant.

JAPANESE whalers harpooned 122 pregnant whales in Antarctica this summer, a shocking new report reveals.

As Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk flew to Japan for a trade mission on Tuesday, a global conservation group called on her to lobby the Japanese government to end whaling.

A new International Whaling Commission (IWC) report reveals that 95 per cent of the female whales slaughtered by the Japanese were carrying calves.

The whalers killed 333 minke whales – plus 122 unborn calves – in the Southern Ocean last summer.

"Apparent pregnancy rate of sampled animals was high'', the Japanese whalers stated in a new report to IWC's scientific committee meeting in Slovenia this month.

"One or two minke whales were sampled randomly from each … school using harpoons with a 30g penthrite grenade.''

The whalers killed one in every three of the protected marine mammals they spotted.

Eleven whales managed to avoid the harpoons by hiding in water with high-density ice.

Over three months, two Japanese ships equipped with cannons hunted the whales for 12 hours a day – harpooning some whales 10m long.

Commercial whaling was banned more than 30 years ago but Japan continues to hunt by using a loophole to kill whales for "scientific research''.

The Humane Society International (HSI) blasted the harpooning of pregnant whales as "truly gruesome and unnecessary''.

HSI senior program manager Alexia Wellbelove said the "scientific whaling'' was a front for the meat trade, as the whales were taken back to Japan for human and pet food.

"The killing of 122 pregnant whales is a shocking statistic and sad indictment on the cruelty of Japan's whale hunt,'' she said on Tuesday.
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Full article here https://www.news.com.au/national/qu...h/news-story/a1851aeec523563c79d593df7085e61b
 
Razgriz-Specter

Razgriz-Specter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
29,428
I wonder how Sea Shepherd(regardless of their actual relevance) feels about that when they decided not to even attempt to stop them this time.
 
SmokingBun

SmokingBun

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,091
I should really keep my mouth shut. I get banned when the subject of Japan comes up
To be honest I should reign in my own racist tendencies

But ya, on topic this terrible and I believe the international community has warned Japan with the threat of sanctions too

EDIT:

Since when has Japan been the dream country of Ahab from Moby Dick?
Has whaling been a thing since Feudal times?
 
BlackLagoon

BlackLagoon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,760
But is there any rasonable way to discern between pregnant and non-pregnant whales before killing them? This seems inevetable when killing any kind of wild animal.
 
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Pickleslips

Pickleslips

Member
Jan 25, 2018
464
Any cunt who eats whale when visiting Japan for the lols or because 'when in rome' is to blame for this garbage.
 

Deleted member 15948

User Requested Account Closure
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Oct 27, 2017
786
User Banned (2 Days): Thread whining, inflammatory post. History of similar behaviour.
...And? Besides trawling for outrage, what's the point in posting this exactly?

I mean yes, we get it, whales are fairly intelligent and people don't like hearing about them getting killed, it's not great. But Minke whales are not endangered, and nobody except vegans is getting upset over octopi being killed, which are also pretty intelligent creatures. We all know the "scientific research" aspect is very questionable, as well. But I just can't see any reason for pointing out the part where some of the whales were pregnant as some kind of nutty whale-pro-life advocacy or something.
 
0VERBYTE

0VERBYTE

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
5,555
BlackLagoon said:
The minke whale is not in any way considered endangered. Not even close. A few hundred kills poses no danger to its population.
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Thats probably wat someone said about elephants or buffalos or rhinos.

When you start killing mothers with offspring that could form offspring of its own, It becomes a problem.
 
Atisha

Atisha

Banned
Nov 28, 2017
1,331
From wat i understand most Japanese citizens are not in favor of this practice. It's presented as tradition and science but its really just corruption, graft, and wanton slaughter by a tiny segment of the populace.
 
Banderdash

Banderdash

Chicken Chaser
Member
Nov 16, 2017
2,463
Australia
Whales are communal creatures... do they make some noise when they're harpooned?
I wonder what would happen if Sea Shepherd just traveled alonside the fleet blasting underwater the whalesong for 'I've been fucking harpooned, run for your lives'?

Every time there is a vote to modify the terms of the whaling treaty, Japan and (I think) Finland get the land locked countries to vote against it... I wonder what kind of bribe / trade concession / foreign aid package it would take to buy those votes and end this damn thing?
 
MBeanie

MBeanie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,875
So where is Japan going to go when all the whales are gone? Whats the end goal of these whalers, since their practice is extremely unsustainable.
 
Spiritual_Chaos

Spiritual_Chaos

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
2,316
Trickster said:
How whales taste
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In that case. Fuck them.

(People should be passed eating other animals in 2018)

N5Ijn0Q.gif
 
BlackLagoon

BlackLagoon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,760
0VERBYTE said:
Thats probably wat someone said about elephants or buffalos or rhinos.
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Like all modern fishing, whale hunting is carefully managed by quotas based on scientific monitoring of the populations. Believe it or not, fishermen don't actually want to destroy the resource they depend upon. The modern quota system was put in place after several countries managed to wipe out their own fish stocks due to overfishing, and there is a lot of focus in fishery-heavy nations to make sure its accurate and functional.

The animals you cite were as far as I know reduced to dangerous levels by unregulated hunting, and even when legally protected, continued to suffer significant losses from poachers. I've never heard of any whale poachers, nor of any illegal market for them to sell their whale products on.

0VERBYTE said:
When you start killing mothers with offspring that could form offspring of its own, It becomes a problem.
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As I said earlier in the thread, killing pregnant mothers seems inevitable when killing animals in the wild. If it was a danger to the population the quotas would be adjusted to account for that.
 
BlackLagoon

BlackLagoon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,760
Buggy Loop said:
This is not new and every time i hear how barbaric japan's fishing culture is the more i hate them.
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Eh, a whale living its life in the wild, and then getting a quick, painless death from an explosive harpoon in the brain doesn't sound barbaric to me. Certainly less so than, say, industrial farming - breeding cows into muscular monsters barely capable of moving, having them spend their entire life in cramped and crowded enclosures where they stand around all day in their own shit, and force feeding them compound feed their digestion was never meant to handle alongside antibiotics and growth hormones.
 
Alastor3

Alastor3

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
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Oct 28, 2017
8,297
Japan have a long way to go.

on a side not OP, everytime I see your avatar, i fell in love more and more with Rosamund Pike.
 
Strangelove_77

Strangelove_77

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Oct 25, 2017
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Ill just say that this makes me extremely sad but doesn't surprise me in the least. I also don't know what I could possible do to prevent this sort of thing. Helplessness is a disease.
 
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KDR_11k

KDR_11k

Banned
Nov 10, 2017
5,235
How about doing science by slamming a few torpedoes into a whaling ship? We'll probably learn more by trying a modern weapon system on a ship like that than by killing hundreds of whales.

Given that demand for whale meat has bottomed out long ago and they have to feed it to animals to get rid of it the government there finances this stuff out of pure spite or maybe cronyism. Scuttling the fleet is probably a net gain for the country at this point.
 
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