http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/15/threatened.tur ...

Note the complexity of issues involved: not just fishing, both commercial and for sport, but also beachfront development, the likely loss of beaches available for egg-laying due to a global-warming-induced rise in sealevel, and the absence of safe habitat for secure populations.

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

Minkes and finback whales are equally beautiful animals.  But they are less often seen by most people, and do not display themselves for relatively long periods at the surface.  By contrast, humpbacks are sensational and spectacular, much better known to most amateur whale-watchers, and more charismatic.  Why, humpback whales have been given names!

So it is not at all impossible that this time, the Japanese will have gone too far.  This time, they will be killing not strange whales, but friends.  And possibly, therefore, the world will at last say enough is enough.

Congratulations to the Australians at Southern Cross University for working on a method to extract much good genetic information from the skin fragments of whales that flake off during breaching.  If the Japanese scientists were serious about gathering genetic data from whales as humanely as possible, they would have all along been pursuing serious efforts to discover the kind of humane, non-lethal method of data collection that the Australians seem to have done.

Needless to say, if the Japanese scientists were serious, and seriously interested in convincing the world of their bona fides, they would have consistently destroyed all the remains of the whales that they had collected "for the purpose of scientific research," and refused on principle to allow those remains ever to come to the market and be sold as meat.

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

It would be no less good if a coalition in the eastern provinces could come together and cry out against the annual, government-promoted and government-protected seal slaughter.

And it would be better by far if everyone's attitude toward animals such as salmon and seals were to evolve, so that we no longer thought of them as things, resources, commodities, but rather as sensitive living creatures, with interests of their own, and to whom we happen to be quite literally related.

Meanwhile, let us hope that fish farming, as it is now done, dies quickly.  It is unsustainable, because the fish that are farmed are predators that need to eat other fish.  The location and design of the farms make them harmful to other living creatures in the vicinity, e.g. migrating salmon that pass near them.  The manner in which the farms are overstocked, and in which the fish are held captive, is inhumane.

Any sustainable and environmentally friendly fish farming must therefore use as its stock those kinds of fish which are vegetarian, or which can be maintained on a diet of easily cultivated invertebrates.  And the farms must be securely isolated from other aquatic ecosystems.

Whether even such farms could ever deserve to be considered humane, depends in part on how much space is allowed to individual fish.  The circumstances of their captivity should not cause them stress.

It is unknown to me if anyone, anywhere, practises or has ever practised a way of killing fish that could be considered "humane," i.e., causing no more than very little and very brief stress and pain.  But it seems fairly indisputable that of all animals regularly exploited by human beings for their meat, we have given least attention to fish, regarding what they may suffer as they die for our sake.

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

It is very very seldom that I get excited about any kind of machines or new inventions.  But this case is quite exceptional.

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

Regarding the humpbacks, yes, this may turn the tide of public opinion against the annual hunt in a big way (as if it wasn't already pretty universally aligned against whaling, this could give it a bump). I wrote about this issue for Oceana's blog here, if you're interested. There's a link there to a story about Migaloo, a rare white humpback that could theoretically be among the 50 killed. Next week is a general election in Australia, and so even politicians are getting into the act.

Oceana: Protecting the world's oceans.

But is there any point at all to that distracting aspect of his work?  The only hint of sexuality in his website is a curious reference to Bo Derek, in his blog, as a "hot sex symbol."  Well, perhaps she was, back when his parents were his age.  Meanwhile, today, is he or is he not trying to impress anybody?  In fact, through what he says and writes, he presents himself as a saintly celibate, singlemindedly devoted to his cause, with no time for such seductive and dangerous distractions as sex.

Anyway, Rob's cause is extraordinarily praiseworthy.  It has at this point three related parts:

1. Sharks are beautiful creatures, who are utterly wrongly presented as being fearsome.

2. The increasing demand for shark fin soup, in a number of East Asian countries with specifically Chinese culinary tastes, is driving a worldwide destruction of sharks.

3. Governments of such countries as Costa Rica and Ecuador, the latter being the guardian of the Galapagos Islands, in spite of their reputations as being decent environmental stewards, are in fact corrupted by the secret global trade in shark fins.

If Rob is in fact also trying to sell himself as the host and star of a marine-wildlife-related variety show along the lines of the late Steve Irwin's "Crocodile Hunter," well, he has my sincere best wishes for all success.  After all, he has intelligence, he has stage presence, he has charm, and he has a terrific love of sharks.  What Steve Irwin did for crocodiles and snakes, Rob can do for sharks.  And the world would be a better place, if Rob is given the chance to deliver that message of love and peace.

To get back to Rob's cause: dealing with the demand for shark fin soup is going to be a very difficult challenge.  It will be too easy for many interested parties, especially Chinese, to say that inasmuch as pro-shark protesters such as Rob Stewart are native English-speakers from such countries as Canada and the US, their protests amount to a kind of cultural imperialism.

This relates to Jon Rynn's question about how to discourage the Japanese from indulging their whaling habit.  Some Japanese have indeed mounted a counter-protest to the international anti-whaling movement, which happens to be largely English-speaking, along the lines of defending national tradition and culture from impertinent imperialist foreigners.

So will we therefore be reduced to the silence of moral relativism?  I hope not.  Moral relativism does not exist.

One hopeful sign in Rob's favor -- more importantly, in favor of the sharks -- is that some prominent enlightened Chinese and people of Chinese ancestry are speaking out against shark fin soup.

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

In fact, the only difficulties I have heard is when it rains and waste such as from cattle, humans, and pets close down the shellfish harvesting due to elevated fecal coliform levels.  That's because shellfish actually clean the water, instead of dirtying it.

The cool thing is that mariculture has been greatly enhanced by use of passive solar and even wind powered upwellers, which greatly growth.  Try this:

Martha's Vineyard

Onward through the fog

Who knows, if I had gone into biology, I might have specialized in malacology, like Stephen Jay Gould, an expert on fossil snails.  Mollusks are interesting, varied, and probably not as difficult to find and manage as some other critters.

The position of invertebrates in animal-rights ethics is currently uncertain.  Among arthropods, most of us seem ready to refrain from abusing crustaceans, e.g. by boiling lobsters.  But why should not similar regard be extended to insects, who are not all that dissimilar?  So far, I still do not mind eating honey, which many vegans will refuse to eat.  And you may have noticed that earlier, I tentatively suggested feeding cultivated fish a diet of "easily cultivated invertebrates," by which I meant something like cockroaches or crickets.  But am I right to think there is not an ethical problem there?  The very fact that I ask that question means, I guess, that there is an ethical problem, which now I must finesse.

And so with bivalves and gastropods.  Many workers in biology have a quite justifiably high regard for the intelligence and sensitivity of their fellow mollusks, the cephalopods.  But then, it is not easy simply to draw the line below octopuses and squids, and above clams and oysters and snails.  For now at least, I do not think we have enough of a reason to refuse to kill them.  Nevertheless, as with all killing of any living creature of any species, we ought to do so only with great respect and appreciation.

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