Quote:

I can back it up
But from which book I remember that from ...


I'm not against Whaling, but I think the reasons that the Nipponese give, let alone the methods aren't justified. Why won't they admit to just being 'overpopulated' and needing to exhaust resources because of that?
...I think also that they hate being called Japanese (which probably sounds like being called a 'Nancy' in their own tongue) for want of Nipponese. Mind you, there is much 'mis-labled' people, places, species out there - like Australia

Don't worry. I might come across as a Conservative - but I'm just as against the 'laziness' of the Environmentalists/Conservationists in providing an 'alternative'.
Take Fishing.
You can't stop Fishing (unless the Fish run out) - people need to eat Fish, though I can blame 'overpopulationalised nations' a fair bit.
Which is possibly why there has been a number of 'stoppages' against Fishing?
So if you can't stop Fishing ...generally, what can be done to boost Fish stocks.
This is where purposely designed and researched Artificial Reefs come into it and this is what the E & C's  must get stuck into ...creating something that not only regenerates Fish stocks, but stimulates are more bountiful growth pattern more-so than was previously done - naturally. Just dumping ex-naval ships ain't the go, especially when they are dumped for Divers, more than fish.

So.
Stop the Whaling ...but the Nipponese can demand that the E & C's come up with a 'Proliferation Plan' as well.
I think Whales are a different kettle of Fish to Fish themselves ...mammals don't breed as fast, especially at that size.
I would love to see a day (like the very old days when 'life' was indeed plentiful) when we can chow down on Whale meat, knowing that they aren't a "Threatened Species".

>>>Yesterday, if I was 5 minutes faster, I would have had a mother and calf Humpback 'breaching' on the surface above me down at the Gutter at Bass Point in Shellharbour.  Oh well, it was good watching them go past so close to shore.

Quote:


I wonder though if these 'scientists' are basing their "resumption" on the statistic of Whale numbers being back to the amount 200-300 years ago before the mass slaughter on the seas.
I think Whale numbers haven't returned to the 100% that they once were.
I think the 'resumption' is based upon the fact that 'there is growth' (like der ) since 'protection' so thats more than enough to resume killing again.
I would have thought a 100 year protection for a 100% return rate would be justified for 'our' human actions.?

...but there is something more sinister at hand.
The fact that Species like Orca are being killed because they have become 'competitors' for dwindling fish stocks, tells me that Whales will be hunted again for various reasons beyond the 'numbers' excuse.

You and I know that Whales aren't killed for FOOD
They are killed for MONEY.

freediver wrote on Oct 30^th, 2010 at 9:22pm:


Sorry jasign...I'm with FD on this one.
The idea that the Native American Indians had wiped out 75% of the bison before Europeans arrived is rubbish......and proven wrong by the accounts of the American settlers themselves....

It's a silly as the suggestion that it was early man (the Clovis People), not the changes in the climate, that wiped out Woolly Mammoth.....

Don't get me wrong, I'm against the Japanese whaling too.....although possible for slighty different reasons to you.....

It's a little off topic, but I feel I must...

"Bison once roamed from Canada to Mexico, grazing the great plains and frequenting the mountain areas of the North American continent. Their number being so great that the early explorers could not count them, describing them as "number-numberless," and "the country was one black robe" and the "plains were black and appeared as if in motion" with the herds of bison. The most commonly used estimate of their former numbers is approximately 60 million.

A strong relationship between the human and the bison has existed for thousand of years. Bison were the center of life for the Plains Tribes of Native Americans, providing them with food, shelter, clothing and spiritual inspiration. Legend tells "the Great Spirit brought the pipe to the people. She came as a young woman wearing a white buckskin dress and moccasins. After the Great Spirit presented the pipe to the people and explained the significance of that pipe, she left the teepee as a white bison calf."

The near extermination of the American Bison did not occur just in a few short violent years. The fur trade, which began in the 1600s, initially focused on beaver but then demanded that bison (buffalo) robes be shipped to Europe. By the early 1800s, trade in buffalo robes and buffalo tongues significantly increased and caused approximately 200,000 bison kills annually on the plains. The 1830s to 1860s were the four decades in which most of the slaughter of bison occurred. Wagon load after wagon load of robes, tongues and, occasionally, selected cuts of bison meat, moved east. Soon, collection and shipping of bison bones to eastern cities where they ground up for use as phosphorous fertilizer or bone char became common. The arrival of the railroads further exacerbated herd conditions for the bison and by the early 1880s there were only a few free-ranging bison.

In 1886, zoologist William T. Hornaday needed specimens of the plains bison for the National Museum in Washington, D.C. Knowing that the plains bison were now becoming quite scarce, he went west and collected in eight weeks time only 25 bison in a region (Montana) that had supported tens of thousands a few years earlier. His thorough search clearly demonstrated that the species was indeed in danger of imminent extinction. By 1893, the estimates were only slightly more than 300 bison left of the herds that conservatively numbered near 60 million animals."

http://www.americanwest.com/critters/buffindx.htm

It_is_the_Darkness wrote on Nov 1^st, 2010 at 10:47am:


Well if the Native Americans (and the primitive tribes before them) had 7000+ years to 'decimated' the bison, how come the numbers were so large when Europeans first settled???

A single bison (which can weigh up to an imperial ton, 2000 pounds, about 900 kilos) would be enough food to feed a tribe for about a week....depennding on the tribe size of course......

Going by those numbers, it'd be nearly impossible for the Indians (or the clovis people) to have even kept up with the bison birth rate, let alone wiped out 75% of the population...

Think about it, when the white man arrived, there were 3 times as many bison in America as there are PEOPLE currently in Australia.....

60 million bison...and they're herd animals, so it's about 3 to 1 female to male, so about 45 million females.....if even half of the cows have 1 calf a year that's still 22.5 million more per year....there is NO way that there'd be anywere near enough of the Plains Indians to kill more than 100,000 bison in a year....

Those figures are very rough.....but you get the general idea of the numbers....

You say my estimates are 'rough'.
How on earth could they have 'estimated' 60 million ...MILLION, back then?
I'm banking on a severe exaggeration just like the old 'sea monster pictures'.

The Namerindians were 'mostly' nomadic compared to their Central and Southern brethren. A lot of tribes would just 'follow the Bison' like parasites. With the later introduction of Horses, the hunts just up'd the ante for more kills. Like I said, thousands of years.
...the Aboriginals just 'barbacued' the MegaFauna out of existence with 'Fire Farming'.
I just believe/think that the Namerindians were no 'Angels' in comparison to other Indigenous/Aboriginal/Indian peoples who committed much Environmental/Conservational damage as did modern races and cultures ...although over a longer period - but still a period of decline.

Name me one part of the world or time of the world, where the Environment and the Animals 'proliferated' via Human occupation ...and this doesn't include 'domestication' (slavery).

Well I will have to concede with you on this issue Freediver as yes, it is coming across as vague in relation to cold hard facts from my own personal input here.

But Science sometimes falls short many times of plain Common Sense and that is how I sometimes play the game.