Whales Lead Fight Against Metabolic Syndrome

[Mulboyne]

Guardian: Whales losing blubber, claims controversial Japanese study
...Japan's scientists claim their controversial whaling programme has produced a key finding. Measurements taken from more than 4,500 minke whales slaughtered since the late 1980s reveal the animals have lost significant amounts of blubber, and are getting thinner at a worrying speed. The team says its study offers the first evidence that global warming could be harming whales, because it restricts their food supplies. And they say the discovery could only have been made by killing the animals. Crucially for the Japanese, the results have been published in a mainstream western scientific journal – a move that has dismayed campaigners, who say it could offer scientific whaling a veneer of respectability, and bolster Japan's efforts to hunt more whales...Lars Walloe, a Norwegian whale expert at the University of Oslo, who helped the Japanese team analyse the data, and is listed as an author on the new study, said: "This is a big change in blubber and if it continues it could make it more difficult for the whales to survive. It indicates there have been some big changes in their ecosystem"...Two journals refused to print the findings before they were accepted by Polar Biology, which published them online last month. Walloe, who says he does not support the current ban on commercial whaling, claimed that the journals that turned down the study did so for political, not scientific, reasons...more...

[Kagetsu]

So increase the quota and hope we find a solution before global warming kills the rest off? OKAY!

Is this the only 'valid' finding the research has come up with to date?

Interesting read though.

[Takechanpoo]

As always, anti-whalers can do nothing but faultfinding.
They never refer to the reason itself why human must not eat whale meat.

[Midwinter]

I'd lose my appetite too if there was a fleet of little yellow people trying to stick me with their spears.

[Samurai_Jerk]

It'd be even tougher to eat if there were a bunch of leather face Australians sitting across the table from you.

[Behan]

Originally Posted by Takechanpoo

As always, anti-whalers can do nothing but faultfinding.
They never refer to the reason itself why human must not eat whale meat.

If whales are OK to eat why not pseudo-Chrysanthemum otaku trolls?

Buwahahahahahaha.

Remember that.

[Kagetsu]

Where's there's fault, there's fault.
To date, there's no valid claim as to scientific results gathered from hunting... This may be the first result that 'may' be accepted, but in 20 years of hunting, government subsidies, and increasing kill rates, the office of cetatious research in Japan hasn't improved on study methods, or even attempted to. They’ve not developed a viable method of study.

So looking at their current study methods, lets see what reasonable results they could gather from the data collected throughout the hunting season.

- Population / Pod Density (can be collected through non-hunting methods)
- Blubber density (this CAN be done through calculations and advanced tracking methods. Granted the work involved would be significant, but so is the work involved in hunting a whale as it requires less brainwork).
- Population / Pod Movements (can be collected through non-hunting methods)
- Pollutants absorbed by whales in their environments (requires collaboration with movements of pods, and populations, but can also be done with blood testing, not harpoons… These aren’t easy to do, but aren’t incredibly awkward either).
- Stomach contents (while this can be done with faecal testing, it’d not ideal, and certainly not easy or safe… This is possibly the only thing hunting results would be viable. But again, it would require pod and population movement tracking to be of any real use.)

These are just some key points, and there are many more reasons and requirements that’d be met under any other circumstances of scientific research.

The primary diet for most whale species is krill and brine shrimp as well as other minor crustatious ocean going species.

I haven’t seen the paper released by Japan, but I’d suggest that there should be reference to stomach contents through the times, and pending those results, we should see a connection between them. Assuming lets say, the stomach contents haven’t changed since the start of their research program one could say that yes, global warming is occurring as shown in the results gathered on depleting blubber per animal, due to a lack of necessity.
One could say the alternative too, with lower levels of their base food stocks, that they’re being indirectly effected by global warming.

At the end of the day though. Does this result yield any real world effect?
No.
We know global warming on some level is occurring currently on Earth.
We have the proof that climates and zones are changing.
We have evidence suggesting that human involvement is a contributing factor in global pollutants and climate change.

If this is what is considered a valid and high quality result of their research, then they’ve wasted money.

[Greji]

Originally Posted by Kagetsu

We know global warming on some level is occurring currently on Earth.
We have the proof that climates and zones are changing.
We have evidence suggesting that human involvement is a contributing factor in global pollutants and climate change..

The question here, is who is the "we" in the above statements. It does not include the opinions of a lot of people, myself included. You need a new thread for this. It could get bloody.

[Takechanpoo]

Originally Posted by Kagetsu

blah blah blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Are you fuckin OK? I wholeheartedly feel sorry for you.
Needless to say, Japan hunt whales under the name of scientific research because of IWC moratorium. So if this fuckin groundless IWC moratorium is rifted, we Japanese need not to hunt and eat cute whales under the name of scientific research any more. No one think Japan really do scientific research like you.
Blaming whether Japan really do research or not is nothing but a findfaulting, too.
Before doing findfaulting, explain logically the reason why human must not hunt and eat whales. If you anti-whalers cannot logically explain it, you have no justification to blame Japan for hunting and eating whales. Dont deceive it.

[GomiGirl]

Take - the problem here is in the logic - or lack thereof. Everybody knows that Japan is hunting whales for food and is using this stupid loophole of scientific research as a way to do it. It is a joke and a farce.

I personally think that Japan has been vilified uneccessarily for the eating of whales - it is a traditional food source and Japanese whaling has NEVER endangered whale numbers. That was done by Western whalers after the oil and not the meat. But now that people love to whale watch and they are such beautiful creatures etc, the West have forgotten that not so long ago, they were hunted almost to the point of extinction. But Japan seems to be the only country responsible. This is flawed logic.

HOWEVER, hiding behind the farce of scientific research is ludicrous. Personally I think Japan should be loud and proud about their traditional food customs. Hiding behind scientific research excuses makes Japan look guilty of something that it is not infact guilty of. Again this is flawed logic.

There is too much emotion over this and not enough common sense IMHO.

I personally do not care for eating whales but then it is my choice not to eat them. However, I don't believe that other people should not have the choice of eating whale if they like. I really could care less about what other people want to eat - well if it was small children or pet animals I would be alarmed but otherwise, I could give a flying fuck.