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Founder of Sea Shepherd Arrested in Germany

Primus said:
He is an interesting case. I am strongly against whale hunting, I think it's abhorrant and serves no useful purpose.

However I always root for the whalers against this guy. I found it hilarious when they sunk his ship.
It just goes to show if you're loony enough, having a good cause in principal isn't enough if you're going to behave like a complete helmet all the time.

Reminds me of PETA a bit as they're another group people despise despite fundamentally being against animal cruelty.
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My thoughts exactly. I'm having difficulty soothing the dissonance though. Especially in light of the fact that I've been defending OWS. Still, my defense of OWS is a bit more practical.
 
WildCat said:
Really, what's the difference between what the Sea Shepherd does and abortion clinic bombers?
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Beside the fact that the Sea Shepard is 100% correct in calling bull **** on "research" vessels? That they're 100% correct that "research" is just a label on top of commercial whaling? Besides that they kill far, far more whales than necessary to carry out whatever "research" into stomach contents they're looking at? Besides that every other country in the world studies stomach contents from whales which wash up on shore?

How about operational philosophy, where animal rights activists adhere to a mandate to avoid intentional harm to any human or non-human, in contrast to abortion clinic bombers who operate with the intention to harm and kill as many people as possible?

How about the sheer priority of concerns, that whales have a first-person point of view and suffer in the extreme for being non-consenting "research" participants, whereas fetuses have neither?
 
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Why do we pretend this is just about whales? Sea Shepherd is against all commercial fishing and ram vessels that bring in things ranging from prawns, crab and tuna. They only focus on whaling for the TV show because the producers knew it would turn viewers off to see them harassing a guy hauling in lobster. But when the TV cameras aren't there all bets are off.
 
Marduk said:
apart from being a founder member of Greenpeace you mean
:D


only two countries still use factory whaling ships, powered harpoons and a legal loophole, neither of them is Inuit, what the Japanese do is actually not for research purposes, they haven't produced any cetology research papers, despite claiming thats what they are doing, whale products always end up on the open market, consider
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7099720.stm

ETA:
Inuit Whale Hunting regulations:
http://www.uark.edu/misc/jcdixon/Historic_Whaling/AEWC/manplan_final.pdf

the reason

if that were the case, why 50, not 1 ?
why 1000 Minke whales ?
why not 2 ?
dead whales wash up on beaches all the time, every other country in the world carries out research on those carcasses, the only reason the Japanese require fresh ones is because:-

despite what you may think of Paul Watson, the Japanese are not carrying out research, they are using the pretext of research to carry on whaling, something which every other country on earth (with one other exception)doesn't do because
1. its unnecessary
2. its inhumane

the Japanese only excuse

is pretty weak
;)
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From what I understand, the hunting protocol for the Inuit is to go out in traditional seal skin boats and traditional harpoons and tag a Bowhead whale, once the harpoon so much as touches the whale, it is finished off with a motor boat with a powered explosive tipped harpoon. They use a combination of traditional and modern hunting practices.
They, like the Japanese, claim cultural heritage and their catch ends up on the commercial market as Alaskabushpilot mentioned. Its on a much smaller scale than what the Japanese do but I don't see such a major distinction between the two practices.
 
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Mikemcc said:
My bold and corrected for you. There is never any good reason to hunt cetaceans.
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There's never any good reason for one vessel to deliberately ram another in the middle of the ocean, either. Certainly no good reason for a ship to deliberately ram a tuna fishing structure while people are walking on it.
 
What about seal clubbing? I find that repulsive but I would never support an organization that tries to ram vehicles carrying the pelts of clubbed seals with another truck.
 
Ady Gil

Checkmite said:
There's never any good reason for one vessel to deliberately ram another in the middle of the ocean, either. Certainly no good reason for a ship to deliberately ram a tuna fishing structure while people are walking on it.
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IMO, the Japanese vessel that ran into the Ady Gil (discussed upthread) was more probably than not trying to ram it.
 
Travis said:
What about seal clubbing? I find that repulsive but I would never support an organization that tries to ram vehicles carrying the pelts of clubbed seals with another truck.
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Seems a lot of people would argue that there would be a definite reason to ram vehicles if humans were treated in a similar manner to seals, or whales for that matter, would you agree?
 
halides1 said:
IMO, the Japanese vessel that ran into the Ady Gil (discussed upthread) was more probably than not trying to ram it.
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And what does that have to do with the Steve Irwin's frequent and deliberate collisions with other vessels and fishing structures, also discussed upthread?
 
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