If your argument simply is that human beings ought to care about and tend to animal welfare, I agree. If your argument is that concern for animal welfare entails opposition to any non-survival-based killing of individual animals, I disagree. These are both arguments in some sense internal to animal welfare as an issue.

What I haven't seen is any convincing argument that concern for biodiversity or resource conservation entails, either logically or ethically, concern for individual animals.

grist.org

J.S.

We need to focus on the root causes of problems.

While I appreciate the role of employing hyperbole to argue a point, as you appear to be doing in this series of postings, the all-or-nothing approach doesn't work very well unless you plan on having a bottom-line negotiating point to which you're willing to back down.  Do you have any intention of backing down to recognize that yes, it is possible for me to hunt doves and quail every now-and-again while working the majority of waking hours on protecting habitat from development?

Jason, you're an economist who has written effectively (I think, at least) about how market theory can be applied to solve, or at least mitigate, certain conservation problems.  Why are you moving from logical arguments of economy to emotional arguments that seem extreme?

But it strikes me that perhaps you're getting at a split, not between enviros and animal types, but between two kinds of enviros.

One kind I suppose you might label "pragmatic," the kind I describe as acting out of enlightened self-interest. This kind argues for preserving biodiversity (and other natural resources) because it is in the long-term interest of humanity to preserve it.

Another kind ascribes inherent moral value to nature and the creatures within it -- it argues that we ought to treat other living creatures well independently of what may or may not be good for us.

It's long been my opinion that in practical terms, the interests of those two kinds of enviros overlap more than they diverge. But it may be that on this question -- the question of the treatment of individual animals -- there really is a split. I'll have to ponder it some more.

grist.org

J.S.

We need to focus on the root causes of problems.

The killing of animals for food is quite natural. If you think it's bad that humans do it, by extension you must think it's bad that other animals, such as whale killing orcas do as well.

-----

By the way, just in from Australia on the example issue of whaling:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1740287.htm

"Researcher Mike Iliffe says commercial whaling issues are dominating the IWC at the expense of the real threats to the mammals."

"When you listen to some of the arguments that the anti-whaling countries put forward they are based on cultural or moral high ground and I would suggest that that's pretty shaky ground to be on."

Australia's hard-right anti-whaling "environment minister" responded to the researchers from the University of Tasmania by repeating his populist mantra:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1740530.htm

"No post mortem on dead whale because of lack of resources"
http://www.oceanfm.ie/onair/sligoleitrimnews.php?articlei...

The wierd situation we have today is that Australia's government funds it's scientists to try to develop non-lethal whale research techniques for nothing more than political purposes (*), but on the other side of the world people with interests in true conservation don't have the resources they need to improve knowledge which could aid conservation efforts.

Perhaps if people had greater financial incentives to conserve whales (through their sustainable use), the funds required may have been available. Perhaps not culturally acceptable in Ireland, but in other parts of the world where it works, why not?

* see my blog if you are interested - Australian Scientist Nick Gales is quoted in the Nature article as admitting that the point of the research is political:
http://david-in-tokyo.blogspot.com/2006/08/whaling-austra...

That said, I don't think that either of our arguments should be cast aside: we should fight to win (that is, to conserve and protect) by whatever means necessary.  Speaking to people who adore their pets and have a connection to individualist mindset--but no real appreciation for conservation--will be best reached by your arguments.  Another group--those who David refers to as pragmatists--may be better swayed by my argument.  Another group, the utilitarians, may be persuaded only if you can highlight the fact that we don't know the "function" of each and every species, and as such, we had better conserve them.

Let's also recognize that the vast majority of species facing the threat of extinction in the short- to medium-term are not threatened by hunting; habitat destruction, invasive species, chemical pollution (especially with regard to amphibians) are far-and-away the big winners there.  Those charismatic species that dominate calls for protection often face hunting pressures that threaten their existence, but how many species are actually employed to that end?  Not many.  I would wager that more species of Neotropical beetles face imminent threats from habitat destruction, than there are individuals of the whale species at greatest risk to whaling.  There is the argument that protecting large, and typically charismatic, species benefits many other species (the umbrella species hypothesis), and that has its place...but that place is not everywhere, nor at all times.

Lastly, I agree that there has to be a basic philosophical change at large human scales before we can truly begin to protect and conserve species.  But that is a fight to be waged over generations, and taking what many will consider radical stands--such as the extremes of animal rights--only helps to the extent that those a little closer to the center are able to slap those further to the "left" (and I use that term with great trepidation).  So let's keep it a minority, but active, view.

My concern with whaling is that it will light off again someday, driving some whales to extincion after all. I do understand the points you are making. I don't think protecting the whaling industry rates very high on the scale of things.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

But allow to me give an example of what I am talking about with respect to whales. The International Whaling Commission conducts it's own research in the Antarctic (SOWER), independantly of Japan's (JARPA) programme.

Last year's research cruise was led by one of my fellow New Zealanders, Paul Ensor, along with US and Japanese scientists. A significant confirmation from this latest cruise was that Blue whales are indeed finally showing clear signs of recovery after dwindling in numbers for many years despite being protected since the 1960's. This was welcome news in terms of whale conservation ().

Now, if I come to my point - who do you think it was who stumped up with the vessel that took these scientists to the Antarctic so they could carry out their research?

It was the Government of that well-known whaling nation, Japan, not the world's richest nation the USA, nor that great whale loving nation situated so close to Antarctic, Australia.

Unfortunately for whale conservation, until last year, the GOJ had been providing two research vessels for each year, but due to financial constraints, they have had to make the decision to reduce the number of vessels to just one, as noted here in this report: http://iwcoffice.org/_documents/sci_com/SOWERPlanMtgSep05...

"On behalf of the IWC, [Greg] Donovan [head of science at the IWC] reiterated the Commission's considerable appreciation of Japan's most generous provision of two vessels in previous years. He recognised the financial difficulties currently encountered by the Japanese Government in maintaining that level of support, but both as a scientist and as one closely involved in planning IDCR/SOWER cruises over many years he was saddened by the reduction to only one vessel. However, he noted that even one vessel is one more than that provided by any other nation."

Now, let's say that the IWC were to permit commercial whaling again in the Antarctic. Japan would certainly request a quota for it's people to benefit from. Is it likely that the GOJ would be more willing to provide the additional vessel in light of the financial benefits derived from use of whale resources by it's citizens? I personally believe so. That's what governments are there for.

On the other hand, were all hope of a resumption in commercial whaling eliminated, the GOJ would have no incentive to aid in the monitoring of whale resources in the Antarctic, and this might be a problem at some point if for some reason whale populations hit some big issue (global warming?) and it went unnoticed.

> My concern with whaling is that it will light off again someday, driving some whales to extincion after all.

In my opinion that's not a realistic concern assuming that commercial whaling is resumed under the IWC's rules - I'll refer you to my comments on previous discussions here about the reasons.
On the other hand though, some whale species have indeed gone extinct over the eons, although hunting by humans was not the cause.

> I don't think protecting the whaling industry rates very high on the scale of things.

I don't see any conservation benefit from wiping out whaling, when there are greater concerns about pollution and ship strikes as threats to whale species, and indeed because financial benefits derived through whaling operations appear to encourage nations to aid research that benefits conservation.

() more on this good news about Blue whales here: http://david-in-tokyo.blogspot.com/2006/02/iwc-2006-more-...

I suppose I don't have a source (right now :-)) that illustrates the direct connection between the funding of the vessel for IWC research, but it seems to me to be a fair assumption given that such a link exists with research whaling funding. The Japanese government is not so rich that it can afford to flush money down the drain on research funding that isn't likely to contribute to some kind of payback to Japanese citizens in the future. The interest in the IWC research is with a view to resumed commercial whaling, not research for the hell of it.

   Some people regard higher mammals (and who decides what is included is a topic itself!) as intelligent creatures, and therefore believe they should be shown the same regard as we show other human beings.

   Which is pretty much none at all.... ummm...hmmmm...

   One of the problems with Jason's argument (and BTW I a against killing whales period) is that he is not actually asking us to treat whales the same way we treat humans (pretty bad), but to treat them better.

   Which may not be a bad idea.  Though one could then argue for better treatment for that curious species Homo Sapiens.  Oddly enough, neither environmentalists NOR most animal welfare (or rights) activists show that much concern for individual members of this species.

   So, trying to drum up concern for individual whales is not likely to get very far.

   Which doesn't mean it's a bad idea, just unlikely to get very far (smile).

patrick

90% of proceeds from whale meat sales go to funding the JARPA programmes, but I've not seen any exact figures for where the whale meat sales go to fund the IWC research vessel (which is my assumption based on the funding for JARPA)

Why are whales under discussion rather than, say, rats, also highly evolved and intelligent mammals.  If some enviro groups use whales and other animals to tug heartstrings and raise money, aren't they similarly being used here to score points in some weird campaign to denounce "environmentalists" for their failure to adopt animal rights?

The 5% Project

50 million Americans live with chronic pain.

On America's roads, a death caused by a motor vehicle crash occurs every 12 minutes; a disabling injury occurs every 13 seconds.

1500 (PDF) Americans die of cancer every day.

As environmentalists, must we commit to end poverty?  Activate to end chronic pain? Cure cancer? Ban cars?

As people, normal, everyday people who care about other animals, including human animals, of course we care about these things.  Of course we would like to stop suffering in all beings.  But is it a necessary tenet of envirnmentalism?

Kaela

But your point is well taken.  There are many bad things, not all of which must be opposed to call oneself an environmentalist.

The 5% Project

One kind I suppose you might label "pragmatic," the kind I describe as acting out of enlightened self-interest. This kind argues for preserving biodiversity (and other natural resources) because it is in the long-term interest of humanity to preserve it.

Another kind ascribes inherent moral value to nature and the creatures within it -- it argues that we ought to treat other living creatures well independently of what may or may not be good for us.
>>

This is a well-written and useful analysis.  Not that titles necessarily matter, but the former position has been called "anthropocentric," and the latter, perhaps with greater variety in wording and emphasis, "biocentric."

Jacobo comes across as a strict anthropocentrist, with his language of competing "basic units of concern," and his rhetoric about Jason's allegedly "emotional argument," and "fuzzi-cuddliness."

"Species" and "individual" cannot be parallel "units of concern," so far as moral philosophy goes.  So far as Jacobo's personal sentiment, and intellectual and professional interest, go, sure.  But cui bono?  For whom is his concern a good thing?  For himself, apparently, and perhaps for other human animals, perhaps even for all the human race.  But does his "concern" extend any further?

For whom is "conservation of a species" a good thing?  The first answer ought to be, all the individuals that belong to that species.  Unfortunately, since so often "species as unit of concern" and "conservation of species" are frankly, even boastfully, linked to the goal of "sustainably murdering a certain number of individuals belonging to that species" (oops!, yes, you read right, there is that word again), say, for example, individuals in the Antarctic population of minke whales, that answer seems impractical.

(Aside to David-in-Tokyo: Thank you for the very interesting, though very incomplete, articles from the ABC.  It should indeed be a matter of international concern, that pollution and global warming are responsible for many more deaths of cetaceans than are the activities of whalers.  There is a whiff of conflict of interest always with IWC statements, but let us put that aside for now.  I should think that if indeed pollution and global warming are the current major whale-killers, then the logical remedy should insist on ceasing all whaling activities at once.  Pollution and global warming are problems that are ever with us, and are notoriously frustratingly difficult, not to say impossible, to regulate, thus far.  Therefore those threats to whales which we have in our power to regulate, ought at once to be eliminated.)

A better answer to the question, For whom is "conservation of a species" a good thing?, would be, for the species' ecosystem.  If, simply understood, there is a "food chain," for example, then it is good for every species at every level that every other level be occupied.

But that answer, while looking sort of biocentric, can also be understood in anthropocentric terms: the good of the preservation of a particular ecosystem, and of a particular food chain, ultimately depends on what good it does for human beings.

Straw man alert: Jacobo's arthropod biologist tells us we do not "conserve" individuals, because they all die before long.  No, of course we do not.  And those of us for whom animal welfare matters never use the verb "conserve" in that way.  So let us put that quibble aside.

Red herring alert: In this connexion, it should be noted, as well, that species "die" too, i.e. go extinct, after not so very much longer, really, than individual organisms die.  Within medical bio-ethics, the foreseeable time of death of any patient is taken into account, but is not always the most important consideration in making medical decisions.  So let us put aside matters of relative lifespan, as being matters of secondary ethical relevance in this discussion.

Jason has asked some tough questions, which I find personally challenging, but also gratifying.  As a fellow philosopher, I appreciate what he is up to here, and I think he is doing it very well.   In my typically conciliatory fashion (well, sometimes), I had hoped to pass for inspection that a number of wildlife-oriented environmental organizations have successfully assembled memberships including both persons interested primarily in the conservation of biodiversity, and persons interested primarily in animal welfare.  And though it was not my intention to point this out, it is perhaps true that many members in the latter category do not fully appreciate the actual distinction in moral ends.  Jason does us a great service, to try to pick this apart.

I take much hope from David Roberts' expression, "enlightened self-interest."  There is room for positive movement here.  Though I dislike titles, I prefer to have the title "humanist biocentrist."  And my hope is that more and more, human beings' sense of "enlightened self-interest" will come to include a sense that they are more fully human, when they recognize that all sentient beings deserve full moral consideration.  Not necessarily equivalent to what human beings deserve, but definitely much much more than they are widely believed to deserve nowadays.

To Biodiv: For what it is worth, lobsters most certainly deserve some moral consideration.  No, not as much as whales.  But definitely some.

To Patrick: Sorry, you know I have high regard for you, struggling sweatily as you do on your bike to get to your class of darling 6th-graders -- and you should take that as a compliment, coming from an old Jedi Knight; kids that age can be merciless, I know, they can be piranhas -- , but I think the ever-important, never-to-be-disregarded subject of Man's Inhumanity to Man is right now a bit of a distraction.

Finally, a thought experiment, on the subject of murdering whales:

Close your eyes.  Think of someone you love.  Think of how you are connected to that person.  Think of when you first met that person.  Think of what you hope may happen to that person in the future.

Now, pay attention to your breathing.  Breathe deeply.  Count your breaths.  Count at least thirty-six breaths.

Now, imagine that someone wants to kill you, and also the one you love.  This person does not know you.  Still, this person does not care how you suffer.  This person just wants to kill you.  This person has great power, and can easily find you and kill you.

Now, imagine this: everytime you take a breath, that person is standing ten feet away, with a lethally-tipped arrow in a drawn bow, looking for you, ready to shoot you.

Sometimes that person is looking for you in another direction, and does not see you.  But sometimes that person does catch sight of you.

And imagine, the same person, or another, like the first one, similarly equipped, is waiting to shoot your loved one, every time your loved one takes a breath.

Could you live like that?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I find it funny that an urban person is suggesting that their morals should be extended to rural people. I find it even more funny when they try to extend THEIR (caps to emphasize relativity of morality) morals to DEER (caps to emphasize the ridiculousness of morality in deer)? Anyone can write a rhetoric sitting in their 20th floor apartment, while feeling bad for this 'ideal' deer who has to live like that because an evil hunter is chasing him. Watch much Bambi?

Sorry, Canis, I'm not trying to make this personal, but maybe people that spend time in the woods should be the ones who are philosophizing about deer, since they see them, oh, about 3 billion times more often than an urban dweller.

<In fact, environmentalism that only concerns itself with total populations of animals should offer no opposition to the hunting of dolphins, many species of sea turtles, elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, bears, gorillas, monkeys, and most of the other megafauna that in many ways have been the most potent symbols of environmentalism;>

  I think many if not most of the critters you have listed are considered "endangered species", at least in most of the pockets of their generally now fractured ranges.  Being of such low populations that you start running up against problems associated with low genetic diversity I think should qualify anything to get off the hunting lists.  If population vs. predation is such that populations are growing significantly (and are determined to be in danger of growing to a food-source limited state) then to answer Jason S' question, I fully support carefully regulated hunting, especially if the proceeds from the sale of hunting licenses can support other worthwhile causes.  While I find the Norwegian slaughter of Pilot whales quite distasteful, I cannot oppose it on environmental grounds, since it has proved to be sustainable over the last several centuries.

Cani and I have run across each other before, and will probably continue to fail to reach an agreement.  I think the distinction has been quite well mapped out in this blog between the pragmatist / anthropocentric / conservationist types and the biocentric/animal rights types.  The question I would like to have answered by the animal rights folks (particularly WRT deer) is this:  If you do away with hunting of the megafauna, what are the remaining causes of death.  Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's pretty.


Bikes can save us!!

First, I do not think I ever once mentioned deer in this thread.

Secondly, elsewhere, I did indeed say that white-tailed deer in the Northeast should be culled, for the good of many interested species.  I am concerned mostly for birds, which need a healthy forest floor and understory.

Thirdly, I have never tried to "extend" my own morality to anyone else, anywhere.  It is abhorrent to me, to suggest that I might try.  Nevertheless, we are all entitled to share our major value-laden opinions with one another, hopefully connected somehow to the interests of people who read Gristmill.

Is it fair to ask in addition, Please do not confuse me with Jason?  He is the one who seems to be several degrees more uncompromising than I, if I read him right.

Finally, and perhaps most important, what does it have to do with anything, that I happen to live in a city?  Just because of that circumstance, does that mean I know nothing about anything else?  Should we all be reduced to silence, on any subject that is not right in front of our eyes?

Nobody can ever know any subject perfectly.  Fortunately, our civilization offers us information technology of such quality, that at least its more thoughtful users, wherever they are (and I am firmly planted on the ground floor, by the way), can make a pretty fair beginning at understanding many topics of interest.

Meanwhile, I have always been most respectful of people who themselves have hands-on experience of anything, for which experience they worked hard.

To GoodCheer, riding angelically on your salvific bike:  Oh, do you know how you cut me to the quick!  Here, I have been not sleeping, I have been not eating, nay, I have been eating dirt, waiting for your return.  So now you are back, and all you have to say is, "we will probably continue to fail to reach an agreement"!

But you see, dear heart, I am not a deep sentimentalist like you, I have no recollection of anything that we disagreed about.  I only remember the happy times we had together.

So now, I suppose, once again, it will blades of grass and gnawed tree bark for dinner.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

        My point was not that people should care more about other people, but rather, that in a world where we don't care about individual members of our own species, we are unlikely to care about individual members of other species.  Which is what Jason seems to be advocating.

        Should we care more about every single poor person as well as every single whale instead of poor people and whales in the aggregate?

        Americans will drop everything to save a child from a well, spending whatever it takes.  Yet that same child might then be sent back to a substandard unsafe school without sufficient medical care (unless the parents can quickly cut a book deal).

        It's the same with the oceans.  We will spend enormous sums of money and effort to rescue one whale run aground, or lost up a river.  But if released, we return that whale to a degraded and perhaps dying ocean without a moment's thought.

        In some ways the divide is between those who are more concerned about the health of the ocean (and have no time for that whale) and those who are concerned about the whale (and disregard the ocean).

        (The same divide applies frequently to people (smile)).

        This is how I see the division, FWIW.

patrick

  The reason we divide ourselves into handy divisions like environmentalist, peace activist, animal rights activist, gun nut, civil rights activist, gay rights activist, women's rights activist, white supremacist, and so on is for utility.

  Basically, the world is too complicated a place to talk about everything all at once.

  Most of us are quite capable of belonging to mulitple categories (if we wish).

  And we thus bring multiple viewpoints and sources of information to the discussions.

  This is generally a good thing.

  When we put on our environmental hats, we are talking about specific issues related to things environmental.

  Sometimes, someone will want to demand that we not talk about things environmental, that we stop and talk about other things, which they feel are urgent.

  This is okay, but it is not environmental.

  We may also, discover that the environmental room is too empty and everyone is discussing (pick a topic).  At this point, it occurs to us, that if we can form an alliance and created a new cross-discipline (environmental-war studies), we will attract more people.

  And make more progress.

  Ultimately, we need to decide who to talk too, and who is likely to want to make alliances we can trust.

patrick

We may also, discover that the environmental room is too empty and everyone is discussing (pick a topic).  At this point, it occurs to us, that if we can form an alliance and created a new cross-discipline (environmental-war studies), we will attract more people.

   The US Armed Forces are certainly one of the most pernicious polluters in the world, and we should all be damned for the use of dispersed uranium, which I personally regard as both an environmental and moral crime.  But that's just me.

   Sigh.

patrick

 "the union-busting argument is wholly unpersuasive and a distraction- environmentalism EXPLICITLY concerns the protection of whales and all of the other species I have mentioned, but according to you and others environmentalism has absolutely nothing to say about how those animals that we fight to protect should be treated once they are "saved"."

As everyone in this discussion acknowledges, J.S. is trying to force people who are environmentalists to concede that by virtue of being environmentalists they recognize some general principle which also implies that individual animals have rights and must be respected.

This manuever dates back to Socrates.  It may, or may not, be persuasive to individual people.  As an abstract matter of logic, it is quite possible to construct a logically consistent set of beliefs which includes general pro-biodiversity tenets but does not include regard for individual animal welfare (as the union buster example was intended to show).  

I suspect that the question of the relation of animal welfare to environmentalism takes on added weight in a forum like this, because if animal welfare is not related to environmentalism, we have to find somewhere else to talk about it, since it is beyond the bounds of Gristmill.

I suggest a more interesting way to explore this is to continue to discuss whether there are or should be foundational principles in common to environmentalism and animal welfare, without insisting on the strong (but trivially false) position that there logically must be.

Another, separate link to the debate, is the question of goals vs. methods (or strategy vs. tactics).  Thus, even if the environmentalist goal is only to protect the species, the best method might be to push the animal welfare argument (as we do with marine mammals).  Similarly, even if the goal is to protect individual animals, a good starting point might be to protect the species.  It is important to remember that there is no inconsistency in using an advocacy method involving rhetoric that is not identical to your ultimate goal (all other things being equal).

Final thought:  while environmentalism may not address every policy question, policy making, by definition must.  All policy issues not addressed by affirmative action are addressed by silence.  Thus, as citizens (and advocates) we do take positions on these animal welfare issues one way or another.

It seems to me that there are really two(or perhaps more) arguments being made here on the whaling topic -- one on ethics and the other on sustainable management. I think D.R. nailed it when he differentiated the anthropocentric and "biocentric" facets of the discussion.

The way that I see it, it's difficult to have a debate about ethical issues -- especially in this sort of medium.  Inasmuch as we are (at least in part) products of our own experience, our individual ethics are something that we have nurtured on an internal level throughout our lives, each of us having our own reasons for arriving at our respective ethical grounds.

This being said, I'd like to get away from the ethical argument for a bit.  I have my own personal views on whaling, just as everyone here does.  However, I think we can better address this matter from a more anthropocentric standpoint which we can all appreciate to some degree.

I have run the gamut with the whaling issue.  I've sat down to meals at Kujira restaurant in Tokyo and have had minke steak in a cafe in Reykjavik.  I've also served on anti-whaling protest ships following and documenting Japanese whaling activity in the Antarctic.  I've worked on and off with American and Australian IWC members, and I've discussed this issue thoroughly with Japanese whaling advocates.

My current (and by no means final, I'm open to debate -- otherwise I wouldn't be here) standpoint is that Japanese commercial whaling, all ethics and cultural values aside, is an anarchronistic and inefficient enterprise which seems to be costing the Japanese goverment dearly.  Subsidized hunting coupled with subsidized sales and increasing supply outreaching a shrinking demand.  What sense does this make?  (If anyone is privy to figures that would refute my assertions here, I invite you to bring them to the attention of this group -- I personally would be very interested in seeing them.)

My personal belief is that Japanese whaling has very little to do with whaling.  It does, in fact, have much more to do with bluefin tuna.

For those of us not currently in Japan, imagine yourself on an archipelago about the size of the state of California hosting something like 165+ million people (I could be slightly off on that figure.  Either way, it's a crowded place.)  Add to that a tradition of most coastal Japanese communities harvesting a great deal, if not the majority, of their protein from the sea.  Moreover, the legacy of WWII and immediate post-WWII recovery -- a time of great hardship and starvation in Japan, and the time when whaling was first introduced on a significat scale -- that lives on in members of the older generation is currently facing an international community which is consistently moving closer to "functional" international government over oceanic resources.  Add these things up, and you are presented with a food security issue.

The Japanese government is confronted by a burdgeoning movement among the international community to "conserve", or perhaps "sustainably manage", whale stocks.  From a food security perspective, this could be viewed as the first step towards general resource management of other major oceanic food resources... such as tuna.  Bluefin tuna, as you may be aware, are extremely threatened in the Pacific Ocean.  Estimates have current bluefin populations down to between 6 and 11 percent of pre-exploitation biomass.  Bluefin aren't alone, either -- many fisheries in the Pacific are crashing.  Many merit more stringent and intelligent management strategies.  At the same time, their scarcity has, of course, raised their value and made them that much more appealing to fishermen.  One top-quality, full-grown bluefin tuna can fetch well into six figures (US dollars) at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.

My take on this is that the Japanese government is electing to fight this issue as a "whaling" issue not because whales are a particularly important food source, but rather to draw a line in the sand, as it were, and take a strong opposition stance to international marine resource management.  If Tokyo were to concede the whaling issue, it may be viewed as taking that first step onto the old slippery slope, and fighting to maintain proprietary claims on valuable and diminishing stocks of tuna, mackerel, and yellowtail would be that much more difficult.  

This is my major objection to Japanese whaling -- I don't think it really has all that much to do with whales at all.  If we want to discuss tuna, let's discuss tuna -- why should the whales have to pay for it?

I invite your comments.

I see a similarity with what's happening with whales in Japan with what's happening in Canada with seals.  The commercial seal slaughter makes no scientific or economic sense, but it does benefit the Canadian politicians on the east coast.

The Canadian government is subsidizing the slaughter of harp and hooded seals, despite opinion polls that show the majority of Canadians want the large scale commercial hunt to end.  The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has invested millions of dollars of taxpayer in promoting and defending the seal hunt around the world. They're lobbying heavily against bans on seal fur in the European Union and they invested money on finding new markets for seal meat, though to date, few people outside of aboriginal communities, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Magdalen Islands have developed a taste for seal meat. They unsuccessfully tried to market "seal pepperoni." But because there is such a small market for seal meat, less than 10% of the seal meat is collected, according to sealing spokespeople.  

Thus the main value in the hunt is for the fur for the international fashion industry. Though sealing supporters claim the seal hunt is a market driven hunt, there's no hiding the fact that one of the primary motivations for conducting the seal hunt is the notion, spread by many of the east coast fishermen and the politicians, that the harp seals were the cause of the infamous cod collapse in the 1990s.

We all know that it was government incompetance and unreasonably high quotas that caused the cod collapse, but marine mammals are easy scapegoats, whether in Canada, Japan, or Norway.  

There is currently no evidence that harp seals are impeding the recovery of cod stocks.  The decline of cod and other fisheries is obviously caused by over-fishing, not marine mammals. But its easier for Canadian ministers to call for an increase in seal hunting than it is to implement fisheries recovery programs that include strict quotas.

More than 50 years of studies indicate that Atlantic cod is a minor constituent of the harp seal diet.  Science (and common sense) clearly shows us that seal and fish populations interact in a mutually beneficial way.  Harp seals help keep groundfish populations healthy and abundant. As we've seen in fishing communities around the world, as long as seals and fisheries overlap, commercial fishing interests will want to remove seals from the eco-system.  However, there is no scientific evidence that the culling of large marine predators has ever benefited a commercial fishery.  

The Canadian government claims the harp seal population is not impacted by the commercial slaughter, but with over half of the pups born each year being killed for their fur, some scientists predict that in several years, the effects of the hunt will be evident. Today's kill levels meet and even exceed those of the 1950s and 60s. And today seals have a new threat to contend with - climate change.  Poor ice conditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where many harp seals give birth, may already be negatively affecting the species.

So I believe that the issue of the commercial seal hunt in Canada is both an ethical and environmental concern that needs to be addressed by all groups concerned with these matters.  We need to address the demand for fur, and we need to advocate for sensible fishing policies, in order to help stop marine mammals from constantly being scapegoated for decreased fish stocks.

The Canadians have long surprised me regarding this matter.  Generally they are remarkably and gratifyingly enlightened.  Yet when it comes to "natural resources," they so often talk like newsreels of the 1950s.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

If biodiversity conservation means conserving all life forms at all scales, and the processes that create and sustain that diversity, then the bunny huggers' position is antithetical to conservation. Should an introduced mountain goat in Olympic National Park have greater "rights" than an endemic plant species? Mountain goats are in no danger of extinction and were not native to the area (i.e. deliberately introduced by humans within the last century), whereas the plants are endemic (grow nowhere else in the world and have a very restricted range) and are threatened.

The same situation arises where deer are seriously altering the species composition and structure of forest systems. In the worldview of the ""animal individualist" is there an ethical or moral difference between people simply shooting the deer and re-introducing predators to do the killing? Both are deliberate conscious actions intended to achieve results that require killing individual animals.

Steve E. Whidbey Environmental Action Network

thank you for this interesting comment.

While I am a supporter of animal rights, I am by no means a fanatic, and doubt I would merit being included in your category of "bunny hugger."

(Bunnies are indeed very cute and adorable, but it cannot be disputed that they are much better off without my trying to hug them.  Anyway, at the top of my cute-o-meter are chipmunks and striped ground squirrels of the genera Tamias and Spermophilus.)

Your indignation, regarding first the ill-advised introduction of non-native mountain goats to Olympic National Park, where they are destructive of rare endemic plants, and latterly the protests of "bunny huggers" against their being reduced or eliminated, sounds perfectly justifiable.

The subject of the killing of individual animals belonging to invasive or destructively numerous species has been raised in these related threads.  I for my part have said that I believe that is justified in many cases.  If I understand Jason Scorse correctly, I believe he would agree.

A few supporters of animal rights, and some who are opposed to the killing of animals for some other reason, have gratifyingly contributed to these threads.  I have not read every word they wrote, but do not recall that anyone expressed any plain opposition to such killing involved in, say, the elimination of mountain goats in Olympic National Park, the elimination of feral dogs and cats -- and goats! -- from the islands that Frogfish has in mind, the elimination of those notorious and much-fought-over feral cats in Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, and the reduction of white-tailed deer in many places in the central and eastern US.  Nevertheless, one or another may indeed be opposed.  If so, I would be interested to learn that person's reasoning.

Please note that your concern for endemic plants, as an end in themselves, adds a most interesting nuance to this discussion.  Earlier, when I wrote that the culling of white-tailed deer was morally tolerable, uppermost in my thoughts were the birds that require a healthy forest understory, which of course the deer have been eating up.  I do not find it a great stretch at all to include an entire regional ecosystem as an object of moral concern, with its plant members as much deserving consideration as its animal members.  But while I believe the individual animals have rights, I cannot yet say the same thing for individual plants.

In the article on mountain goats, Oreamnos americanus, in the Kaufman Focus Guide to Mammals of North America, beneath the range map is written, "introduced into several states south of historic range."  But it is not at all obvious what the "historic range" was.  The tiny map does not show the range to include any place on the Olympic Peninsula; it does show it to include all the Cascades down the Yakima valley just about to the Oregon border, and the Rockies of Idaho and Montana down to Yellowstone.  These southernmost extensions of the range are continuous with the range, as depicted, in BC and Alberta, so basically there is no way to recover historic data from this little article and teensy map.  Any further information from you would be appreciated.  Thanks already for incidentally pointing out the Kaufman Guide's erratum regarding Olympic National Park.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

J.S.

We need to focus on the root causes of problems.

    It is not dispersed uranium, it is indeed depleted uranium.  I seem to have a mental block about this term (personally I always refer to it as distressed uranium, indicating my feelings about the matter!).

    I have written the term many many times, read it many more, and I cannot seem to get it correct... hmmm.... back to the couch!

    Thanks!

patrick

   I can only say that hugging bunnies is a lovely pastime and one I have always tremendously enjoyed.

   So, if anyone wants to attack unreasonable people who refuse to allow protection of endangered plants, please use other terms!!

patrick (non animal welfare environmental vegetarian)

I myself have struggled against particularly zealous individuals who support the idea that each and every animal should be allowed to live out its life peacefully without being ridden, harnessed, whipped, cooped, shoed, penned, branded, eaten, or otherwise utilized by humans.  While I agree with this perspective on numerous levels, I find myself at odds when it comes to introduced and invasive species.

As beautiful or "cuddly" as an animal may be, when it is introduced to a foreign ecosystem, it can become a serious impediment to the welfare of endemic species.  Steve's point concerning rare plants being threatened by introduced animals is well-taken and mirrors some issues that I have been working on over the past year.

I have faced off with self-styled "animal rights activists" (using their term, not mine) over whether or not feral cats should be exterminated from certain islands in the Pacific where they are eradicating the native bird populations.  Some would say that there is never a reason to kill these cats as they were introduced by humans and thus the problem is "not the cat's fault."  Well, certainly there is no equivocation about this, but this viewpoint doesn't do much for the welfare of the birds.  The cats will most likely starve to death anyhow after they wipe out their food source, so it seems a question of killing the cats or allowing the cats to kill the birds and then die themselves.

That being said, killing a cat is easier said than done, at least for me.  I'm not sure if any of you have ever killed a cat -- it's not a pleasant task and it's simple for me to complain from my desk about feral cats, but should the invasive species team decide to stick -me- with the rifle or the traps, I'd probably change my tune.  Perhaps this exposes some hypocrisy on my part, but I maintain that the cat problem (or goat, or pig, or myna bird, or whatever) must be addressed.

Introduced species need to be managed in a way that will best protect the native biodiversity of a given region.  Prevention is always the best method, but should a potentially invasive animal or plant make it through quarantine zones or escape from gated pastures, mitigation measures must be taken, and endemics -- Steve's rare plants -- must take priority.

My current (and by no means final, I'm open to debate -- otherwise I wouldn't be here) standpoint is that Japanese commercial whaling, all ethics and cultural values aside, is an anarchronistic and inefficient enterprise which seems to be costing the Japanese goverment dearly.  

The research programme costs are currently at about 6 billion yen a year. The government pays about 500 million of that, with the rest being covered by sales of whale meat.

Subsidized hunting coupled with subsidized sales and increasing supply outreaching a shrinking demand.
...
If anyone is privy to figures that would refute my assertions here, I invite you to bring them to the attention of this group -- I personally would be very interested in seeing them.

You are right that supply has increased, but recent figures reported in the Yomiuri Shinbun indicated a 50% year on year increase in consumption, despite the price of whale meat remaining relatively high.
http://david-in-tokyo.blogspot.com/2006/09/whaling-market...

From what I read, the real problem for the whale meat market at present is that supply is still below a kind of "critical mass" level. With low levels of supply (supply has increased, but only from levels that were "extremely low" to "very low"), prices are necessarily high, and thus whale meat still has a limited audience, generally speaking. You've got a product that is hard to find, and expensive when you do.

To put things in perspective, consumption peaked at 220,000 tonnes one year back in the 1960's. Today annual supply is only around 5,000 tonnes. This isn't enough for reopening that many of the markets that were killed off by the moratorium. For new markets to take hold again supply needs to be greater, which would also see prices come down further, making it affordable to people who otherwise choose not to buy it.

The Japanese government is confronted by a burdgeoning movement among the international community to "conserve", or perhaps "sustainably manage", whale stocks.

I'd say the movement isn't to conserve or sustainably manage whale stocks, it's one to place blanket protections on all cetacean species for reasons that have nothing to do with conservation.
I also disagree that this movement is "burgeoning" (thankfully). I'd say that it's hit it's natural limit. I see resistance to it growing internationally as developing nations are not willing to let NGO groups in rich western nations dictate to them how they should manage (or not use at all) their resources.

My take on this is that the Japanese government is electing to fight this issue as a "whaling" issue not because whales are a particularly important food source, but rather to draw a line in the sand

You are quite right - and this is exactly what you can read if you go to Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs homepage:
"JAPAN'S PRIMARY INTEREST at the IWC (International Whaling Commission) is to keep the principle of sustainable use, which is applicable to other international forum related to the management of wildlife and marine living / fishery resources."
http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/fishery/whales/japan...

This is no big secret, the problem is that the western media has no incentive to report such dull things as this when "shocking" "revealing" anti-whaling NGO propaganda documenting the "horror" is much better for newspaper sales.

This is my major objection to Japanese whaling -- I don't think it really has all that much to do with whales at all.  If we want to discuss tuna, let's discuss tuna -- why should the whales have to pay for it?

I'm confused - you seem to have figured this out for yourself, with your slippery slope comments. Yet you refer specifically to tuna? As stated at the MOFA page, it's about the principle that is related to management of ALL fishery resources. Be it whales or tuna, the same principles should apply.

I see a similarity with what's happening with whales in Japan with what's happening in Canada with seals.  The commercial seal slaughter makes no scientific or economic sense, but it does benefit the Canadian politicians on the east coast.

Figures at the link below show that the Landed Value for the seal hunt in 2006 was $27,023,320.
http://www.nfl.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/publications/reports_rapport...
Compare it with what happened in 2005:
http://www.nfl.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/publications/reports_rapport...

$16,289,402? Wow. They saw an increase of more than $10,000,000 in the Landed Value of the seal hunt year on year. That's pretty impressive given increasing fuel costs.

Why not let the people of that region decide whether or not it makes economic sense?

We all know that it was government incompetance and unreasonably high quotas that caused the cod collapse, but marine mammals are easy scapegoats, whether in Canada, Japan, or Norway.  

It's always worth keeping it in the back of one's mind that people do actually eat marine mammals in those places.

The decline of cod and other fisheries is obviously caused by over-fishing, not marine mammals.

Whatever, what's really important is the sustainability of the seal hunt itself. Perhaps if animal welfare groups promised to pay the people of the region $27,000,000 annually each year, plus inflation, and so forth, then they might agree to stop hunting seals and sit around on their bums all day instead of working?

But its easier for Canadian ministers to call for an increase in seal hunting than it is to implement fisheries recovery programs that include strict quotas.

That's certainly true, but there is little wrong in increasing quotas for seals if they are in abundance.

As we've seen in fishing communities around the world, as long as seals and fisheries overlap, commercial fishing interests will want to remove seals from the eco-system.

I was under the impression that the people hunting seals were fishermen looking for supplemntary income in an otherwise quiet time of the year. I could be wrong :-)

some scientists predict that in several years, the effects of the hunt will be evident.

I heard that the seal population estimates today are much higher than they were back... in the early 80's, I think it was.

Today's kill levels meet and even exceed those of the 1950s and 60s. And today seals have a new threat to contend with - climate change.

Indeed. The effects of climate change on these animals needs to be monitored, and human hunts adjusted accordingly.

In the various recent posts by Grist 'environmentalist'/hunting enthusiasts it seems to me that these folks have more in common with the government enforcers and slaughter industry flesh purveyours than environmental or animal protection/welfare/rights activists and organizations.

Both the annual Canadian seal pup slaughter and Japanese dolphin drive slaughters prompt a convergence of enviro and AR advocates as Jason and others have urged in these various blog posting and threads of recent weeks.

It saddens me that the majority of Grist blog posters who consider themselves to be environmentalists side with those harming the enviroment and killing wildlife than aligning with the movement/philosophy they claim to be affiliated with.

to wit:

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2006/2006-09-21-03.asp

Conservationists, Scientists Outraged by Japanese Dolphin Hunt

WASHINGTON, DC, September 21, 2006 (ENS) - Conservationists, scientists and zoo and aquarium professionals have renewed efforts to stop Japan's annual dolphin hunt, which began this month and is expected to kill more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises. The Japanese government says the "drive hunts" are necessary because the animals compete with local fishermen for limited supplies of fish, but critics argue the practice is unnecessary and inhumane.

see also:

Tajii dolphin:
http://www.earthisland.org/saveTaijiDolphins/

http://www.seashepherd.org/taiji/
Each year from October through March, in small towns across Japan, thousands of dolphins and small whales are confined and brutally killed. These slaughters take place in fishing towns including Taiji, Iki, Ito, Futo and Izu. During those months, Japanese fishermen herd whole families and pods of dolphins, porpoises and small whales into shallow bays and mercilessly hack them to death. Most of these small cetaceans are sold as meat in restaurants and stores, while some are destined for a life in captivity.

In addition to the small cetaceans being massacred on the beaches, Japan kills approximately 100,000 more marine mammals

and

seal info:
http://www.seashepherd.org/seals/
Canada's commercial seal "hunt" is the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world.
    *  The slaughter of seals is incredibly cruel (a post mortem survey has shown that 42% of these babies are skinned alive)
    * It is a threat to the survival of the species
    * It is a threat to the survival of cod
    * It is a slaughter done mainly for unessential, vanity, and luxury items, and therefore, is unnecessary
    * It is unethical to slaughter newborn seal pups (About 95% of the seals to be slaughtered are babies less than four weeks old)

J.S.

We need to focus on the root causes of problems.

The question under discussion these many long weeks is not whether this or that environmentalist finds seal (or whale, or whatever) slaughter ethical, but whether one's ethical stance on seal slaughter is part and parcel of one's environmentalism.

For my part, I do find it unethical (though I do not find killing animals as such inherently unethical). But I, unlike you, am perfectly willing to accept that someone who disagrees with me on this question is still an environmentalist in good standing.

It simply is not a question about the health or quality or sustainability of the environment. It's about human obligations toward individual animals. A different question entirely.

grist.org

J.S.

We need to focus on the root causes of problems.

The seals that die will most likely die as a result of other means, since their environment is only capable of supporting so many of them. They will most likely go to feed polar bears or orcas or gators. Still with me?

None of us live there. We don't know jack shit about what it's like to live near the poles. We have the luxury of sunlight during the winter and darkness during the summer, and the bugs are not as bad. We should ask the Eskimo or Inuit elders about their take on it based on their morality and tradition.

Question to JDS: how do you synchronize personal beliefs re: animal welfare and working hypothesis re: public and 'commons' privatization? I do not see these as being coherent.

Despite promising myself (and you) that I'd stay out of this, I also don't feel I can keep letting these tendentious and artificial arguments pass by unchallenged.

You keep repeating in so many words that you believe anyone who is "perfectly comfortable with the types of slaughter that the articles above describe [seal clubbing, dolphin slaughter] is not in [your] opinion an environmentalist."

You don't happen to be holding in your hand a list of names of the environmentalists who support whaling, or those other moral wretches who are  perfectly comfortable with the Canadian seal pup slaughter or the mass dolphin killings in Japan, do you?

I'm not even sure such persons actually exist, but if they do, would you consider showing mercy if were show repentence and are willing to testify at your hearing, inform on their colleagues and friends, naming names?  I imagine it like this:

J.S. [Gavelling hearing to order]:  "OK, Mr. Environmentalist. Are you now - or have you ever at any time in the past - been guilty of eating a tuna fish sandwich? And how long have you been psychologically addicted to slaughtering whales and clubbing seals."

Several of us (Steve Erickson, for one, me for another) who were formerly engaged in this discussion have repeatedly asked you to climb down from what you imagine to be the moral high ground of condemning dolphin slaughter and seal clubbing to clarify where you stand on realistic and genuinely troubling ethical issues that are relevant to any proposal to impose the animal rights agenda on all environmentalists.

One question you have been asked is whether you could accept the necessary killing of feral, introduced animals in order to protect endangered or endemic plants (as in Washington State's Olympia Peninsula), or to maintain habitats, or to sustain prey populations to support an endangered endemic predator (as in Indonesia's Komodo National Park), or simply as a humane way of reducing populations that have grown excessively large due to the disappearance of former predators or other anthropogenic factors.

These are hardly remote hypothetic cases - similar quandaries arise in the real practice of biodiversity conservation all the time. This is also a reasonable question because, as we know, some animal rights advocates, as a matter of principle, would not countenance the intentional killing of animals under these circumstances.

Would you like to answer?  Or would you prefer to go on implicitly accusing anyone who doesn't agree with all the arguments you have outlined so far of harbouring suppressed urge to harpoon whales, slaughter dolphins and club baby seals?

Robert Delfs

1. What you consider moral "highground" is actually a long tradition of moral philosophy so if you disagree with my opinion fine, but it is not soley my personal opinions that I am trying to "impose" on others- I am trying to persuade and there is a lot of thinking that backs this up- I urge you to read up on the the biggest names in moral philosophy- all of them except Kant make specific claims that it is immoral for humans not to take into account animal welfare- I am extending this notion to environmentalism, since, as I have repeated ad nauseum, wanting to protect species from extinction and then supporting many of the egregious practices I have outlined is akin to protecting a nation from genocide only to enslave them- it doesn't make sense on the most basic level

2. In an earlier post last week I stated:

"In instances where these animals need to be controlled due to overpopulation, exceptions should be made, and hunting is acceptable; in fact, hunting can actually reduce animal suffering in these instances"

So yes, I already in essence addressed your question- killing feral aniamls to protect habitat overall ecosystem health FOR ALL ANIMALS is the moral thing to do- I support the Nature Conservancy and its efforts, which often include such practices. However, rich countries hunting whales for food, elephants for fun, and seals for fur IS NOT ETHICAL- hopefully, you and Steve and others can understand the details of my arguments enough to understand why one offends morality and the other doesn't- it's not a huge stretch in logic and I think environmentalism should encapsulate this- you don't, ok fine

3. As to environmentalists who support whaling and killing seals and elephants etc. etc.- there are many- some of whom are on this site- also, there are many environmentalists who at least implictly support factory farming and widespread animal testing- my arguments extend to all gratuitous violations of animals welfare- so yes, they are a big deal, and yes, many environmentalists do have conflicting views on these issues- it's not just some abstract pet peeve of mine- reasonable people can disagree as we do but I think it is inaccurate to assume that these are side issues and that I'm just quibbling over things at the margin

J.S.

We need to focus on the root causes of problems.