For the last week i've been harp(oon)ing ono about the whaling issue being inadequately addressed at the IWC but I've sort of exhausted this year's angles.
In the mean time Pleiades pointed me towards this page that is at the Department of Environment & Heritage website. Apparently there was an article in today's Financial Review talking about the inconsistency of the DEH allowing Kangaroos to be shot while arguing vociferously against whaling. The author of the article presumably wants Kangaroo culling to stop, however, it's the same logical fissure in the morals argument against Whaling, so I thought I'd bring it up:
Injured Kangaroos and pouch young
No matter how carefully the shooter aims, some kangaroos will not be killed outright. Wounded kangaroos must be dispatched as quickly and humanely as possible.When killing a wounded animal a brain shot may be impractical. For example, the accurate placement of a shot in the brain may require capture and restraint of the animal; this would increase suffering and be inconsistent with the objective of sudden and painless death. In such circumstances a heart shot may be the most humane means of dispatch. In some special circumstances, where a wounded kangaroo is encountered, it may not be practicable to shoot the animal, as at a practical range the acceptable points of aim may be obscured, and at a close range the use of a high powered rifle may be unsafe. In these special circumstances a heavy blow to the skull to destroy the brain may be the most appropriate and humane means of dispatch.
Kangaroo shooters often shoot more than one kangaroo out of a group before driving to the carcases to retrieve them. This is acceptable provided that where an individual kangaroo is wounded no further kangaroos are shot until all reasonable efforts have been made to dispatch the wounded animal.
Shot females must be examined for pouch young and if one is present it must also be killed. Decapitation with a sharp instrument in very small hairless young or a properly executed heavy blow to destroy the brain in larger young are effective means of causing sudden and painless death.
Larger young can also be dispatched humanely by a shot to the brain, where this can be delivered accurately and in safety.
Conditions
- The shooter must be certain that each animal is shot dead before another is targeted.- If a kangaroo is thought to be alive after being shot, every reasonable effort shall be made immediately to locate and kill it before any attempt is made to shoot another animal.
- When located, wounded animals must be killed by a method that will achieve a rapid and humane death, where practical by a shot to the brain.
- Under circumstances where a shot to the brain of an injured animal is impractical or unsafe, a shot to the heart is permissible (see Schedule 3).
- In circumstances where, for dispatch of a wounded kangaroo, a shot to either the brain or heart is impractical or unsafe, a very heavy blow to the rear of the skull to destroy the brain (see Schedule 2) is permissible. To ensure a humane kill, a suitably hard and heavy blunt instrument must be used (e.g., metal pipe, billet of wood etc., carried for this purpose).
- If a female has been killed, the pouch must be searched for young as soon as the shooter reaches the carcass. The pouch young of a killed female must also be killed immediately, by decapitation or a heavy blow to the skull to destroy the brain, or shooting.
Shooting for scientific purposes
Permits to shoot kangaroos for scientific purposes are sometimes requested. Because of the circumstances and locations in which such shooting may take place, and because of specific research requirements (e.g. to obtain anatomical items such as intact skulls for diagnostic examination and museum reference collections), it may be necessary to allow exemptions from the general conditions such as point of aim and shooting platform.Such variations must never detract from the primary responsibility of the shooter to provide a sudden and painless death for the target animals.
Conditions
The provisions of this Code shall apply to the shooting of kangaroos for scientific purposes except were express provision to the contrary is included in the permit/licence under which the animals are shot.The licensing authority should only issue such a permit/licence if it is satisfied that:
- the Animal Care and Ethics Committee (or equivalent) at the
relevant institution has examined and approved the proposal; and
-the method of shooting will result in sudden and painless deaths for the animals authorised
to be killed.The waiving of any requirements of this code shall not relieve the shooter of the absolute requirement to provide a sudden and painless death for the target kangaroos.
Interesting reading.
Some thoughts that come into my mind:
What kind of science requires them to shoot Kangaroos...?
Where's the scientific evidence that they need to shoot the kangaroos?
What moral justification can there be in killing such beautiful, magnificent beasts?
Where's the moral outrage around the world with reagrds to this wholesale massacre of a species?
Heh.
IWC Stoush V
Day 5 of the annual shindig of abuse. The Humane Society Internationl is pushing for trade sanctions against Japan over whaling.
"In response to Japan's proposal to increase the number of whales killed under its alleged scientific whaling program, HSI will petition the US government to seek trade sanctions against Japan under the Pelly Amendment to the Fisherman's Protective Act," HSI director Michael Kennedy said in a statement.
He said that although scientists and member countries formally criticised Japan's proposal at the IWC meeting, they were powerless to prevent Japan from carrying out plans to increase the number of whales it kills annually to 935 minke, 50 humpback, and 50 fin whales.
"Japan showed up at the IWC meeting with harpoons at the ready, prepared to undo 30 years of whale conservation," Mr Kennedy said. "The Pelly Amendment allows the president of the US to impose trade sanctions against a country whose activities threaten the effectiveness of international endangered species protection programs."
Mr Kennedy said the HSI, which originated in the US, had worked for more than 30 years on IWC whaling policy.
Maybe I should send the HSI the link to the DEH Kangaroo hunting webpage too. Se if the President will hit Iraq War ally Australia with a trade sanction.
Then, there's the Hokkaido chain that is selling fastfood whale burgers.
Well, I'm more inclined to try that than Korean dog stew.The chain of restaurants, on the island of Hokkaido, said the burgers were selling well. A spokeswoman said the timing of the new dish, coinciding with the annual meeting of the IWC in South Korea, was accidental. But she said she hoped it would give more young people a chance to try whale, which was once commonplace on the menu, but has declined in popularity over the years.
All of Japan's whale meat comes from the 700 or so it is allowed to kill every year
for research purposes.
There's also this page here that claims a victory for the anti-whalers containing my new Norwegian friend Rune Frovik saying:
Japan's proposal on coastal catches was a ``reasonable request,'' said Rune Frovik, an official with the High North Alliance, a non-governmental pro-whalingorganization based in Norway. ``What sustainable whaling means is harvesting nature's surplus,'' he said.While of course Greenpeace is saying there are better ways to profit from whales, i.e. watching them.
Countries led by Australia and New Zealand and conservation groups including Greenpeace are promoting alternative ways of profiting from whales, such as through tourism and whale-watching.Well yeah, but I doubt I want to go cow-watching or pig watching insetad of eating beef or pork, if you know what I mean.
Then there's this news:
Um, yeah. Is this Patrick Ramage a complete and utter brain-dead moron? Or did he simply get his Pre-frontal lobotomy before he walked into the interview? Which part of food culture isn't 'cultural'? You know, "you eat wheat, I eat rice. You eat cow-burger, I eat whale-burger, Korean over there, he eat DOG STEW!." The pungent Eurocentric whiff of that hangs in the air like a truly sulfrous grilled-onion-fart.JAPAN lost its third major vote at the International Whaling Commission yesterday when the group refused to grant limited hunting rights to Japanese coastal communities.
The loss came 24 hours after the IWC, pushed by Australia, condemned Tokyo's scientific whaling program, which anti-whaling states say is actually a commercial hunt in disguise.
It also failed earlier in the week to overturn a 20-year international moratorium on commercial whale hunting. In its failed proposal yesterday, Japan had sought to allow its coastal communities to catch 150 minke whales a year. It was rejected 29 votes to 26.
Some conservationists and anti-whaling nations say they supported whaling for
indigenous communities as a form of subsistence. But they saw the measure
brought by Japan -- the world's second-largest economy -- as a way to skirt rules to benefit coastal communities that are neither impoverished nor in need of whale meat to support a slim diet. "We don't campaign against legitimate subsistence whaling, but Japan is trying to create a new category -- cultural whaling," said Patrick Ramage, spokesman for the conservation group International Fund for Animal Welfare.
To get an insight into the whys and wherefores of the Pacific Island Nations, we have
this more balanced piece covering some other nations apart from Japan and Norway.
The so-called indigenous/aboriginal subsistence whalers go out with motorised boats (bought from Japan) and mechanised harpoon throwers (bought from normway), and export their catches to Japan in exhcange of a load of cash. But hey, if you're an Alaskan eskimo, it's assumed you are morally subhuman and therefore okay to catch whales. Ditto if you are from the Faroes or Chukotka, or St. Vincent or The Grenadines. So in the future, it's conceivable that the Japanese and Norwgeians simply bankroll these indigenous operations directly; and keep pushing those quotas up.But the issue runs deeper than aid. Many of Japan's supporters among the small island-developing nation group deeply resent what they claim is bullying and interference in their economic self-determination by wealthy countries.
"It's a privilege of being economically well-off, this failure to understand and accept the cultures of traditional peoples," says Antigua and Barbuda Agriculture and Resources Minister Joanne Massiah. "We forget that 50 million people are starving every day while we look at this issue so flippantly and that marine resources are a critical source of protein."
Ulsan accounts for about 80 per cent of the whale meat eaten in South Korea and quite a lot of dolphin, too. And somehow the 150 tonnes of whale South Koreans consume in a year is more than can be supplied from accidental kills, which is the only legal source of domestic meat.
But that's an easy reconciliation compared with the task of facing more than 320 delegates from the 60 countries meeting under the beady gaze of pressure groups as various as Greenpeace International, the Whale Cuisine Preservation Association, the International Association for Religious Freedom and Women's Forum for Fish.
Japan and its island allies have remorselessly pushed for the IWC to revert to what it was and what, according to its charter, they say it should still be. The commission was established in 1946 to provide for the proper preservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.
The anti-whalers are fighting to keep the IWC as it evolved after the general moratorium and earlier bans on hunting at-risk species: a whale preservation and protection organisation. Or, more accurately, the whale protection group because, unlike dozens of organisations claiming to save whales, the IWC regulates member governments with the force of international treaty.
What Japan calls "the extreme anti-whaling countries" oppose killing whales for food or profit under any circumstances and in Australia's Campbell, they have a true believer as spokesman. In terms no other Howard government minister would use about their Japanese allies, Campbell describes Tokyo's scientific whaling program as "absurd, obscene, inhumane". He has adopted an albino humpback whale as the totem of his crusade and warns: "Migaloo could face the death sentence."
"This generation will be judged in part by the way we treat these amazing creatures," Campbell wrote in The Australian recently. "Australia will not only continue to fight to save this important species, we will lead this historic mission."
Sitting alongside him in Ulsan is Britain's Ben Bradshaw, whose food and farming portfolio encompasses much animal suffering. Bradshaw sets the Blair Government's baseline: "In the end we don't think there's a humane way to kill whales."Joji Morishita, Japan Fisheries Agency's director of international negotiations, rolls his eyes at such rhetoric. "We thought we were joining a supper club and it turned out to be a stamp collecting club."
Nevertheless, the commission still presides over whale killing. This year, about 2300 animals will be killed by IWC members under four categories: scientific whaling, aboriginal subsistence hunting, accidents or bycatch, and commercial catching.
Heh. That quote from Johji Morishita is pretty funny.
Well, we know about the accidents, we know better now.Non-government organisations and governments such as Australia, New Zealand and Britain constantly assail the Japanese programs as scientifically fraudulent and
commercial whaling in disguise."Where is the science from 18 years of scientific whaling? It doesn't exist," asserts NZ's Environment Minister Chris Carter.
Morishita replies that Japan's Cetacean Research Institute has produced more than 200 pieces of peer-reviewed research. But the Cetacean Research Institute sells the by-products of its research to sate Japanese appetites; last year it sold 3900 tonnes and raised $78million to cover about 90 per cent of the cost of the program.
Again, the Japanese point out that scientific whaling is specifically allowed by article 8 of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which also requires that research by-products should be sold.
Iceland also runs a small and scientifically dubious research program, which may take about 30 whales this year. However, the Icelandic whalers have more problems than the Japanese finding customers for their by-product. There are also permits for about 400 animals - minkes, bowheads, fins and greys - to be taken by traditional subsistence whaling communities in Alaska, Greenland and the Nordic countries. Four humpbacks a year are also allowed to the Bequians of St Vincent and Granada in the Caribbean. On the latest available figures for 2003, about 220 animals a year are dying after being accidentally caught in nets. These are whales that South Korean and Japanese fishermen are allowed to sell for meat, after an investigation. South
Korea and Japan accounted for 89 per cent of all such reported accidents in 2003.
By the way. Military Sonar, anybody?
Hmmm. Amazing what you can trawl up with google, isn't it?Whales and dolphins around the UK are being killed by military sonar systems, according to a BBC investigation. The programme Countryfile found there could be a link between the system used by ships to detect submarines and the growing number of beached whales.
Whales and dolphins use sonar to find their way around, and it's thought they are confused by sonar from the ships, causing them to beach themselves.
Wildlife groups are now calling for a full investigation into the problem. Scientists studying the stranded mammals found nitrogen bubbles in their bodies. The bubbles could cause decompression sickness, brought on by the animals coming up to the surface too quickly after their navigation system had been scrambled. With no way of knowing what's around them, it would be easy for the creatures to strand themselves on the shore.
And then there's Solar Flares Too.
Surges of solar activity may cause whales to run aground, possibly by disrupting their internal compass, German scientists suggest.University of Kiel researchers Dr Klaus Vaneslow and Dr Klaus Ricklefs publish their study in the latest issue of the Journal of Sea Research.The scientists looked at sightings of sperm whales beached in the North Sea between 1712 and 2003.They then compared this record with astronomers' observations of sunspots, an indicator of solar radiation. More whale strandings occurred when the Sun's activity was high, they found.
So that wraps up this year's IWC stoush.
- Art Neuro
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