Save the whales!
Legal whale slaughter
Dear friends,
The International Whaling Commission has just unveiled a proposal to legalize commercial whale hunting for the first time in 24 years.
Countries are now deciding their first responses -- and they're watching public reaction closely. New Zealand called its provisions -- which include a legal quota for hunting endangered fin whales -- "offensive," "unacceptable," and "inflammatory." But other key nations are rumoured to be leaning in support of it. They need to hear from us now.
Avaaz has launched an urgent petition to show our leaders their people want to protect whales, not hunt, kill, and sell them. The petition is being sent to the International Whaling Commission each time it reaches another 100,000 signatures -- sign here and forward this message:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/whales_under_threat/98.php?CLICKTF
A strong international consensus has opposed whaling for decades -- but for just as long, Japan, Norway, and Iceland have continued to hunt whales, ignoring the global ban on whaling or exploiting a loophole by claiming their expeditions were "scientific research." Now they could be rewarded by this "compromise" proposal, in which their commercial whaling would be made legal in exchange for unenforceable promises to slowly reduce their yearly catch.
Worse still, a number of other countries are watching the process closely in hopes of launching their own whaling programs. If Japan, Norway, and Iceland can hunt whales and sell their meat, others will ask "if them, why not us?"
It's time to save the whales -- again. The IWC proposal will be voted up or down by country delegates this June, but their positions are hardening fast -- let's respond massively, right away, everywhere. Click below and forward this message to oppose the legalization of commercial whale hunting:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/whales_under_threat/98.php?CLICKTF
Forty years ago, whales were on the brink of extinction. But thanks to a global social movement, the world banned commercial whaling in 1986. The ban is one of the environmental movement's great triumphs.
Today, whales still face many threats: not just the whalers' harpoons, but also climate change, destruction of ecosystems by overfishing and pollution, and nets intended for other fish. A renewed wave of commercial whaling could devastate these extraordinarily intelligent and social cousins of humanity. This is no time to move backwards.
Dear friends,
The International Whaling Commission has just unveiled a proposal to legalize commercial whale hunting for the first time in 24 years.
Countries are now deciding their first responses -- and they're watching public reaction closely. New Zealand called its provisions -- which include a legal quota for hunting endangered fin whales -- "offensive," "unacceptable," and "inflammatory." But other key nations are rumoured to be leaning in support of it. They need to hear from us now.
Avaaz has launched an urgent petition to show our leaders their people want to protect whales, not hunt, kill, and sell them. The petition is being sent to the International Whaling Commission each time it reaches another 100,000 signatures -- sign here and forward this message:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/whales_under_threat/98.php?CLICKTF
A strong international consensus has opposed whaling for decades -- but for just as long, Japan, Norway, and Iceland have continued to hunt whales, ignoring the global ban on whaling or exploiting a loophole by claiming their expeditions were "scientific research." Now they could be rewarded by this "compromise" proposal, in which their commercial whaling would be made legal in exchange for unenforceable promises to slowly reduce their yearly catch.
Worse still, a number of other countries are watching the process closely in hopes of launching their own whaling programs. If Japan, Norway, and Iceland can hunt whales and sell their meat, others will ask "if them, why not us?"
It's time to save the whales -- again. The IWC proposal will be voted up or down by country delegates this June, but their positions are hardening fast -- let's respond massively, right away, everywhere. Click below and forward this message to oppose the legalization of commercial whale hunting:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/whales_under_threat/98.php?CLICKTF
Forty years ago, whales were on the brink of extinction. But thanks to a global social movement, the world banned commercial whaling in 1986. The ban is one of the environmental movement's great triumphs.
Today, whales still face many threats: not just the whalers' harpoons, but also climate change, destruction of ecosystems by overfishing and pollution, and nets intended for other fish. A renewed wave of commercial whaling could devastate these extraordinarily intelligent and social cousins of humanity. This is no time to move backwards.
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Comments
That said, it is high time to allow for the continuation of whaling. Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction, like other species before it because of a lack of control with qoutas. The whaling Norway and Iceland conduct now are on species of whale that are not threatened, and in qoutas (that are rarely, if ever filled) that are adjusted each year to account for variables in breeding. There is simply put no valid reason to not allow whaling in controlled forms any longer, but of course only on species of whale that are not threatened by it. Again this won't be a problem, because the hunting that caused the near extinction of certain species of whale was for their oil. The world has since moved on, naturally. The only hunting of whale happening at the moment is for food, and all other potential whaling would also be for food.
Whale meat is delicious. You guys are missing out. There are no rational arguments for not allowing whaling. If you oppsose all hunting of animals, I can at least understand that argument, but if that's the case, try to sell me on that and not some save the whales rubbish. Go tell someone you support whaling instead and help fight the good fight against irrational people everywhere.
Actually, the International Whaling Commision instigated the moratorium on whaling, and it's pretty much their call whether or not to allow it again. The moratorium was needed at the time, many species of whale was hunted to near-extinction, but there simply is no need to keep such a moratorium any longer for non-endagered species of whale.
I'd say the whaling commision cares about whale numbers, no whales means no whaling, but i'm sure the numbers are a hell of a lot off from what they were.
In short, I have no idea what i'm talking about, but i'd probably eat whale meat and then feel guilty about it
Effect. Affect (as a noun) means feeling. As verbs, affect means to influence (which results in an effect. I know, not very straightforward). To affect can also mean to fake. To effect means to accomplish.
Most of the time though, effect is a noun (an effect = a result) and affect is a verb.
SHAVE THE WHALES!
Their hair has been cloggin' up my drain for much too long...
That's what i thought (and generally do), but i always end up self-doubting myself!
What does work? Actual well-written, thought-out letters are good. And petitions do work when presented to elected officials, when they have some sway on the people who do make the decisions. (Especially when said elected officials are putting together budgets.)
That doesn't work in this case though, because the people who want whaling to stop are not the same people creating a market for whale meat.
You're right, to an extent - the way to stop whaling is to make it an essentially unprofitable venture. The problem is that whales are a communal resource, and different parts of the community (i.e. different parts of the world) have conflicting priorities when it comes to use of the shared resource: the U.S. want to conserve it, Japan wants to exploit it for financial gain (obviously there are other countries involved, but I'll use these two as examples for simplicity's sake).
Since there is an existing market for whale meat, and that is unlikely to change in the near term, how can we find a balance (beyond a total moratorium or a top-down quota system)? The economic solution is broadly, as you said, to make whaling less profitable. There are three economic instruments we could use to achieve this: taxes, subsidies, and marketable permits.
I don't think any of these would really work, or at least they are unlikely to be implemented any time soon. But the same systems can generally be applied to any environmental problem where conflicting economic interests exist.
While we're on the subject: bluefin tuna, various sharks, and many corals are also endangered, but they lack the cuddly popular appeal of cetaceans so no one could really be arsed about them.
tl;dr - yay environmental economics.
Why do so many Dutch sound like Sean Connery when they try to talk English
Though I've never actually seen a whale, I think they are majestic creatures and a species that deserves to outlive us. But I don't know about the effectiveness of these saving-campaigns. The people that really can make a difference will always go ahead with how they're doing things. It's their nature, and how sad it is I don't think there's any changing that. Doesn't mean the rest should give up the fight, though. And I have no ideas for new battle strategies, either. Other than kidnap-and-brainwash operations.
Then I propose we arm the whales and give them a fighting chance!
Anyways, we've been ruining the whales life since we started putting boats into the oceans. Whales used to be able to communicate ridiculously long distance, thousands upon thousands of kilometres. Now with all the noise in the ocean from shipping traffic they can only communicate over about 40km or so*
*not exact figures at all, but it's true!!
Oh yeah, whales with "laser beams"! Take THAT, pesky drifting icebergs!
That explains a lot.
SAVED. THE PROBLEM IS NOW OVER.
The difference is that there aren't many of them. They are also cuter than cows and chickens and look better on posters.
My feeling is both dolphins and whales play an integral part in the ocean ecology and getting rid of them might affect the ecosystem in ways that we can't predict, ways that might also affect humans (negatively). It is simply safer for everyone to preserve the status quo. You could easily use the same argument for preserving sea otters which, by the way, are much more important to the ecosystem and are in much more danger.
Cows and chickens don't really play much of a part in the ecosystem anymore, and we breed huge numbers of them anyway, so there is little danger of extinction.
We're trying to save whales, not submarines. It's not even yellow.
Whales and dolphins actually aren't the only animals environmental groups are interested in, but because there has been coverage on them in the past they're better known than other endangered forms of marine life.
Also, to "stop" hunting a few species is a far less complicated solution than say ... figuring out what the heck we can do about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
I think my bio professor might have been involved with one of those "save the otter" groups; we must have spent at least two lectures talking about otters.
Pollution is definitely an issue-- which leads to global warming, which I don't believe is quite as drastic as the hype says, but still pretty important to a lot of species that can't survive even small temperature changes (coral reefs).
I'm not sure I agree 100% with this point of view, but I definitely see their point. It's a lot easier to sympathize with an intelligent animal.
Depends. Gelatine can be made with all sorts of crap. Eyes, bones, intestines... Usually from pigs though, I remember that my muslim friends couldn't have stuff with gelatine because of that. They could have kosher gelatin though, which is made with fish I believe.
Maybe it has to do with respect of life, long term self preservation or just the pure enjoyment of variety of life and therefore you only should kill those who you really need to and less because it's some sort of stubborn tradition in the country you're living in.
Don't safe the whales, just leave them alone and let them do their whales things.