Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> Well, we can see how well the Japanese are doing with their "scientific research" whale killing, which is really bad as they are using it as a excuse to continue the practice.

The whales they research aren't endangered. Also, other nations and people hunt whales.

> Similar loopholes will be found here, for example: if i capture a rhino and send it to a farm for 1 week, is it now a animal that we can do "research" on? What about 1 month?

That's a possibility. But more likely, it'll create more tiger/rhino "farms". Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is debatable just like trophy hunting.

Also, the threat to tigers and rhinos aren't poachers. It's loss of habitat due to human population growth. Where humans live in numbers, it's hard to have tigers and rhinos around because they can easily kill humans. It's why most tigers and rhinos in the world today are in zoos or wildlife enclosures.




"Also, other nations and people hunt whales."

A grand total of ...two. And not at the scale of the Japanese. Iceland even exports whale meat to the Japanese because they don't eat enough of it. To top it off, Japan has to subsidize the "industry" (quotes used because Japan claims it's for research) because it's unprofitable.

Sources:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729043-000-taxpayer...

https://www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/whales/which-cou...

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151203-why-do-some-countrie...


> The whales they research aren't endangered.

Does it really matter? Number of countries agree not to whale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#International_Whaling_...) and Japan is OK to do that?

> Also, other nations and people hunt whales.

Other people kill people as well. Should I be afraid of you?


Yeah, it really matters if the whales that Japan is hunting are endangered. One is an ecological catastrophe, the other is safe harvesting of wildlife.


> Also, the threat to tigers and rhinos aren't poachers.

Actually that's a big threat, sorry to burst your bubble, they're threatened by multiple different human factors.


Is the problem with whaling that whales are endangered, or that they're "too intelligent"? If the latter, is there a similar issue with hunting non-human primates?


The problem with whaling it's that whales are an important component of the ocean ecosystem, and killing most of the whales will have dire consequences. Cows and chickens are not part of the natural world and killing then to eat them has no effect other than ending an animal's life.

It's not about endangerment, it's about recognizing that the earth is a fragile system that we're pushing closer to the edge with every extinction. We have a responsibility to our descendants to take care of their planet for them until they can arrive.


>It's not about endangerment, it's about recognizing that the earth is a fragile system that we're pushing closer to the edge with every extinction. We have a responsibility to our descendants to take care of their planet for them until they can arrive.

Except this literally doesn't apply to Japan. The whales Japan is hunting are not endangered, and there is no proposed mechanism whereby Japan's whale hunting causes ecological harm. The IWC's own scientists recommended the whale hunting moratorium be removed around 1994.


If people think whales shouldn't be killed for moral/aesthetic/religious/whatever reasons, and can convince everyone else to agree (presumably at the level of nation states), that's fine even if they're not all endangered or critical to the ecosystem. I just want people to be honest about why they don't want it.


Many of these justifications are easily ended by just not killing any animals.


> Also, other nations and people hunt whales.

Ah yes, the "two wrongs make a right" argument.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: