New Zealand to support Japan's whale hunt (Moratorium is "emotional attachment")

[Bluebear]

New Zealand is part of a group of countries offering a compromise with Japan at international whaling talks.

The group will put forward the proposal at the next International Whaling Commission meeting in June.

The deal would allow some whales to be killed in return for a reduction in the quota of whales hunted under Japan's so-called scientific research program.

"The problem here is that there is no effective international control over the number of whales that are being killed," New Zealand whaling commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer said.

"If that could be secured that would be very good. An emotional attachment to a moratorium that isn't working is not, in my view, realistic."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/01/2862436.htm

[depakid]

1. Lovely- backstabbed by the Kiwis before we even get to court

[xchrom]

2. A country that will for sure never get my tourist dollars. Nt

[Bluebear]

3. good afternoon

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Some sanity is coming to fore here

The only way to eliminate commercial whaling is to eliminate demand.

[Luminous Animal]

5. If Japan could figure out how to ranch whales...

few would give a flying fuck about the slaughter.

[OneBlueSky]

6. "The problem here is that there is no effective international control over the number . . .

of whales that are being killed". . .

um . . . how about setting that number at zero . . . then "effective international control" would simply mean ANY whale killing would be illegal, and that's a lot easier to control than setting quotas . . .

whales are highly intelligent and social creatures that humans could learn a lot from . . . if only we'd stop this seemingly insatiable urge to kill them rather than observe and study them . . . if there's any species that's worthy of protecting unconditionally, it's whales . . . imo . . .