From: tomg@stud.cs.uit.no (Tom Grydeland)
Subject: Views on hunting and environmental issues (somewhat long)
Keywords: ARers, Greenpeace, whaling, seals, hunting
Followup-To: talk.politics.animals
Originator: tomg@stud.cs.uit.no
Organization: University of Tromsoe
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 00:05:29 GMT

The reason I wanted to post here is to discuss some of *my* views on
different types of hunting. I am an occational hunter myself, and I've been
listening to your discussions concerning hunting for a few weeks now, and
my feeling is that the people most adamantly against hunting are a bit
removed from the facts of life and death in nature. The way I see it, *all*
animals on this planet nourish themselves by killing, whether they hunt
other animals, just eat plants or both. People who want all species living
together with no killing seem to me to be further from nature and the
realities of life than people who look upon hunting and killing as a
natural and healthy way to supply your diet.

Most people in the Western World, whether hunting or not, consume fantastic
amounts of animal meat and meat products. Most animals raised in captivity
today will not reach full mature age, as the meat/fur is of better quality
on the younger animals. If an animal lives in freedom and get shot down by
a hunter, that *must* be better (as seen from the animals point of view)
than being born and raised in captivity with nothing to look forward to but
being killed in the end. Anyone who has been to a chicken farm or anything
of the like would surely agree with me.

Hunters have been accused of being brutal, blood-thirsty, insensitive
barbarians trying to prove their Machoism[tm] by killing those pretty,
fuzzy, cute, furry animals with big, black, sad eyes. This is a somewhat
romantic approach. Yes, some animals (and in particular the young ones) ARE
irresistably cute (this could account for all the cats people are trying to
give away). To give an example: Pups of the grey seal (which lives in
abundancy off the coast of Norway) are *irresistably* cute. Their snow
white fuzzy fur, somewhat helpless and clumsy movements, and big black sad
eyes make them an obvious target for affection. It caused an uproar here in
Norway (and also many other nations) when the researcher Odd Lindberg
filmed "brutal" Norwegian seal hunters killing these pups with "hakapik"s
(a pick-axe). What the film *didn't* show was fishermens nets filled with
seals dead from drowning. They had gone into the nets, maddened with
hunger, as there are too many seals and not enough fish. Do you ARers out
there really think that this is better? (By the way, Canadian seal-hunters
kill their seal pups with baseball bats).

How can we let sentimental issues decide which animals we are allowed to
kill and eat and which we are not? Why should cute animals be spared and
ugly animals not? Why is it so much more OK to kill and eat a cow or a pig
than a deer? If *those* are our moral standards, perhaps we should revise
them a bit? If looks decides which animals we can eat, how can we expect
such a decision to be to the best of Nature? Remember, true beauty is in
the eye of the beholder.

As for the minke whale. Many environmentalists have made whales a flag
issue. This originates from the fight to save the blue whale (and in the
US, from the TV-series about Flipper). Unfortunately, this has led many
people to beleive that *all* whales are endangered and threatened with
extinction. This of course, is not the case. There are presently about
90000 (ninety-thousand) minke whales in the Northern Atlantic. This
population can (and should) sustain a yearly hunting of about 2000 (or was
it more? I don't remember the exact figures) animals. Now let's look at the
figures. We can estimate the minke whales' weight to 1000 kg, giving about
750 kg of meat (this is not an exact figure, but close enough). In
addition, the minke whales' meat is extremely nourishing, healthy and
well-tasting, and the whale is at all times living in its natural habitat
eating its natural kind of food. Compare this to chicken raised in modern
farms. These chicken are cramped together, they are hardly able to move,
they are raised on a special diet to make them grow faster, and they have
never tasted the sweet freedom of wild life. Their average weight is about
1 kg, giving about 0.75 kg of meat. Now where do you find the most
suffering, do you think?

One of the great AR arguments raised against whaling is the method of
killing, which has been accused of being barbaric, inhumane and so on. The
ARers claim that whales go on living for hours and hours after being shot.
This of course is *not* true. The modern exploding harpoon, invented in
Norway (by the great-great grandfather of a friend of mine btw), consists
of a shock grenade which explodes inside the whale, and usually kills
instantly (that is, within 10 seconds), failing which, it will stun the
animal and give the whalers a secure kill. No wounded whales get away.
Currently, there are *very* strict regulations on who can fire the harpoon.
The rules say that they are not allowed to fire unless they are 100% sure
of hitting the whale. The research whaling this summer has not resulted in
*any* misses. Compare this to the hunting which is done by the inuits in
Alaska. They use cold harpoons (without explosives) which don't *sound* as
brutal, but it assures longer suffering and likely escape (which DOES
occur) for the wounded animal. In addition, the inuits are hunting a whale
species that is close to extinction, but *this* whaling has been approved
by the IWC on cultural grounds. The IWC scientific commision recommended a
limited hunting on minke whales, on the grounds that the population is
large enough to sustain hunting, but the IWC prohibited all hunting on
political grounds. So where did the IWC's credibility go?

One of Greenpeace's first reactions when confronted with the Norwegian
decision to resume whaling included something like the following
(paraphrased from memory): "The whales sing out their despair against this
brutal and inhumane decision from the murderous Norwegians."  This is a
common trick amongst ARers. They are putting alot of emotions and feelings
into the minds of animals, making them into a kind of "pseudo-humans." This
of course assures instant support from emotionally inclined humans which
have no idea that they are being manipulated.

I think it is time to take a closer look at Greenpeace. They have a lot of
employees, big ships, helicopters, fast zodiacs and so on. Where did they
get the money? From private persons trying to do their bit to save the
earth? Probably not. This is money in a totally different league. Consider
the fact that several important chemical companies are not very bothered by
Greenpeace at all. Consider the fact that Greenpeace are spending a lot of
money "protecting" animals that are far from being threatened by extinction
when there are so many other important things to do in the fields of
pollution, economic imbalance between North and South and insane levels of
consumption in the Western world. I wonder, who makes their priorities?
Could it be that Greenpeace are more interested in high-profile media
oriented actions which assure television coverage than actions that
actually matter in saving this earth? Let's look at Greenpeace in Norway.
One by one, the Norwegians on the board have left in protest against the
organisation's statements and politics, the last one (a professor in marine
biology) over the Norwegian whaling issue. So there are no Norwegians
currently on the Greenpeace Norway board. In addition, consider the fact
that close to all Norwegian environmental organisations actually *support*
the Norwegian decision to resume whaling. So where did Greenpeace's
credibility go?

I consider myself a concerned environmentalist.

I do *not* however, consider it a valid use of time and resources to strike
out at all other small details that we would all like to improve.  In this
perspective, eating meat *is* a waste of resources. It takes approximately
10 kg of plants to produce 1 kg of meat. This should *not* however, stop us
from topping off plentiful populations for consumption.

If we want to talk about saving the earth, we must look at issues which
can contribute towards this goal.

We must look at nuclear waste.
We must look at the Consumer Culture in the West.
We must look at the population explotion.
We must look at the increasing use of fossil fuels.
We must look at the accelerating use of energy.
We must look at the pollution introduced by large industrial companies.
We must look at the disappearing fresh water resources.
We must look at the trade imbalance between North and South.
We must look at the deforestation of the huge rainforests.

In short, we must come to an agreement on whether we are interested in
reducing our spending to a level which this planet can sustain for us and
the coming generations. We must come to an agreement on whether this planet
is meant for us alone or for our children too.



We didn't inherit this world from our parents
we borrowed it from our children



It's our responsibility to keep it alive for them. Let's start taking that
responsibility *NOW*.

-- 
//Tom Grydeland(tomg@stud.cs.uit.no)._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
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