Since I’m Japanese, PeTA and Dolphines were the most interesting and catching topics for me. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the movie the Cove and the TV show Whale Wars. I know I should watch them to argue but I have researched by myself about whaling. Personally I do support whaling. The Japanese whaling is for research purpose. That means we (Japanese) could get to eat after researcher finished researching. I don’t think the group who presented about PeTA pointed this out but it is illegal to waste even a piece of whale meat. Almost all parts of whale are edible or could be used as traditional crafts. The reason we have to kill whale by harpoon is that, unlike bears, we can’t use tranquilizer to make whale sleep because they will drown. And to research what they are eating, we can’t collect their feces because feces dissolve into the ocean right away so we have to capture and open whales’ intestines.
The whale we capture is mainly Minke whale. Minke whale was classified as an endangered animal, however, couple of decades ago it reached to the K-point (carrying capacity). Carrying Capacity is the maximum population that can be supported by an environment. According to the IWC website, Japan caught 506 Minke whales on 2008 to 2009. That is 0.061% of whole population of MInke whale. On the other hand, Native Americans in the Washington State captured 140 Gray whales which is 0.52% of whole population of Gray whale. Personally I really don’t like that Whale Wars is focused on Japanese whaling and that it is sponsored by Animal Planet. Why can’t they also fight against Native Alaskans and Greenlanders?
And about the dolphins, actually I didn’t know Japan had culture of capturing dolphins and eat them. I think that is same for most Japanese people. Eating dolphins is regional culture, like eating raw horse meat. I regard capturing dolphin is same as capturing whales by Native Americans. So I don’t against it. But personally I thought it seemed cruel when I saw the trailer of the Cove. Presentation absolutely conveyed how dolphin fascinates us. My friend from Ukraine said dolphins seem different than other animals, they seem friends and you can’t eat friends. By watching dolphin videos, her opinion sounds agreeable. She also pointed out about Japanese fishing boat entering the territorial sea of Australia. The reason these topics are controversial is not only from the ethical perspective but I think there are political reasons. To me, the nations who are in the IWC makes me wonder if they are really interested in whaling by environmental reason.
I was interested from the start in what you would have to say about the whale/dolphin hunting. I think this shows how PETA and other anti-whaling organizations prey upon the average American's (of which I would count myself a member)ignorance of other culture's laws and practices.
ReplyDeleteI did some research on Japanese whaling and saw that while Humpback and Minke whales are primarily hunted (Both are listed as "Least Concern" with regards to population), Fin whales are also hunted (about 50/year) and those ARE classified as endangered. Now I'm not going to make an environmental claim about the morality of hunting an endangered species because frankly I'm not an environmentalist. But I think you've shown another way in which these environmental organizations oversimplify the issue by claiming that ALL whaling is problematic, when they would probably have a much stronger case if they only fought specifically against the hunting of endangered species.
As for why Japan tends to be singled out in the whaling debate, I have no idea. You could probably write an entire thesis on the reasons behind that. As you say, there are likely some political and possibly even cultural motivations. It's much easier to criticize the activities of a culture that is very different from your own, after all.
Part of what we wanted to avoid, in crafting the poster on dolphins, was making the debate about "The Japanese" because shows like 'Whale Wars' and movies like 'The Cove' sometimes veer into outright racism in their depiction of whaling and dolphin drive hunting. It becomes an issue of "backward" tradition versus "modern" understandings of Dolphins / whales as 'intelligent' or different from other 'animals.' That's why we tried to be very clear about what the "anti-whaling" (dolphins are considered on par with whales for the purposes of the IWC) block "says."
ReplyDeleteThis ends up being very interesting because, as it turns out, a lot of people (your Ukrainian friend included) view dolphins as "different." I couldn't say exactly why this is, but I could say that when you read testimonials about "dolphin meetings," people are generally extraordinarily jubilant. People experience profound joy from their "dolphin meetings" and I think that is worth interrogating, whether it is beyond the scope of this course or not.