From: sveini@mack.uit.no (Svein-Ivar Lillehaug)
Subject: Greenpeace and what they do not know (or tell you about) 
Keywords: Greenpeace and other misconseptions, scientific work in those
          big blue seas, the Norwegian scientific MINKE whale hunting. 
Organization: University of Tromsoe
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 23:44:27 GMT

In article <12055@cis.rand.org> Rodger_Madison@rand.ORG (Rodger Madison) writes:
>
>How can you complain about Greenpeace's efforts to deceive people when you
>make an outlandish statement like this?  In what way is the system out of
>balance?  Probably because the population of other whales has been so far
>depressed by hunting that the Minke is increasing to fill a near-vacant
>ecological niche.  Why is 800,000 too many whales?  How does it compare to
>historical (pre factory-ship hunting) populations?  I have more sympathy
>for Greenpeace now rather that less after seeing how the whale industry
>and its apologists try to distort public perception.
>
>     Rodger
>
>In article <1992Aug28.160105.27547@news.uit.no>, sveini@mack.uit.no (Svein-Ivar Lillehaug) writes:
>
>> harder to cash in the money if people knew that there were approximately
>> 800.000 minke whales swimming around out there, and that this continously
>> increasing number helps to bring the ecological system a little bit
>> further out of balance.              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ok, folks. I am willing to share some more information with you. As I am
working hard to finnish a thesis, I choose to reply on Rodger's posting
with a summary from a related discussion which took place in
soc.culture.nordic a couple of weeks ago. 

>Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
>From: richard torres
********>Subject: Whale Research
>Sender: richardt@ifi.uio.no (Richard Aronce Torres)
>Organization: IFI, Norway
>Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 13:38:31 GMT
>
>
>Please explain  what  the norwegian scientists are researching
>on about whales.  Is it really necessary to slay more than a
>hundred whales?  Why are the norwegian scientists doing the  
>research alone?  I'm sure other nations would like to do research
>about whales as well.  Imagine if they start doing their own slaying. 
>Any research about whales must be done internationally so that
>scientists from different countries can share their results and  monitor
>each.  This way less whales will be unnecessarily be slaughtered.
>Any comments are welcomed.
>Richard


...which was replied on by Gisle Hannemyr:

>Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
>From: gisle@ifi.uio.no (Gisle Hannemyr)
>Subject: Re: Whale Research
>Sender: gisle@ifi.uio.no (Gisle Hannemyr)
>Organization: gisle@ifi.uio.no
>Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 22:54:54 GMT
>
>In article <1992Aug14.174852.26475@ugle.unit.no> jafitv@termo.unit.no (Jan Arne Fagertun) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug14.133831.28632@ifi.uio.no>, richard torres writes:
>|> 
>|> Please explain  what  the norwegian scientists are researching
>|> on about whales.  Is it really necessary to slay more than a
>|> hundred whales?  Why are the norwegian scientists doing the  
>|> research alone?  I'm sure other nations would like to do research
>|> about whales as well.  Imagine if they start doing their own slaying. 
>|> Any research about whales must be done internationally so that
>|> scientists from different countries can share their results and  monitor
>|> each.  This way less whales will be unnecessarily be slaughtered.
>|> Any comments are welcomed.
>
>> Please explain why people all over the world hunt animals. Imagine if
>> all men and women start doing their own slaying.
>[ more parody deleted ]
>
>
>Jan, those were legitimate questions, and deserve proper answers, not
>parody.  He is not asking about commercial hunting, but about this
>year's research and the number of whales killed for research.
>
>I am probably not the right one to answer this, and had hoped that someone
>closer to the research work would step forward.  But if no-one else
>answers, I'll have a go -- mainly based on what the newspapers have said
>on this:
>
>|> Please explain  what  the norwegian scientists are researching
>|> on about whales.
>
>I believe the main topics for research is the number of whales, what
>they eat, and their reproduction rate.  You don't have to kill whales
>to count them, but unfortunately you need to do that to find out what
>is in their stomachs, and how many whale cows are pregnant.  In
>addition, there is some public interest in Norway and abroad in hard
>data about the killing/hunting methods themselves (what is time
>elapsed from the hit until the animal is dead, what proportion of the
>animals escape after being wounded, etc.).
>
>|> Is it really necessary to slay more than a hundred whales?
>
>The anti-whaling organizations main argument against some of the
>statistical data that support whaling is that this data is unreliable
>because the number of whales in the sample is too few to make the data
>statistically significant.
>
>
>|> Why are the norwegian scientists doing the research alone?
>|> I'm sure other nations would like to do research about whales as
>|> well.  Imagine if they start doing their own slaying. 
>|> Any research about whales must be done internationally so that
>|> scientists from different countries can share their results and
>|> monitor each [other?].
>
>The Norwegian whaling research is done with the approval of, and under
>the auspices and control of the IWC (International Whaling
>Commission), of which all whaling nations (and a large number of
>non-whaling costal nations) are member.  The results from this
>year's Norwegian research will be shared internationally with other
>scientists both through the IWC and standard scientific channels.
>There are IWC approved inspectors aboard all Norwegian whaling boats
>to monitor the activities.
>
>According to the charter signed by all IWC member nations, all whaling
>activites must be approved by the IWC.  If other nations want to do
>their own "slaying", I am certain that the IWC would coordinate their
>research with the Norwegian project (or call for an international
project).  They have not indicated that they want to do so, and I can
>only assume that are happy to let Norway take the brunt of the current
>international outrage on the killing of sea mammals
>
>|> This way less whales will be unnecessarily be slaughtered.
>
>As the meat resulting from this years research hunt will be available
>in the shops and used for human consumption. Hence, no whales are
>unnecessarily slaughtered :-) .
>
>I suspect that you will feel provoked by the sentence above and the
>following smiley.  You may even elect to interprete it as evidence
>that this year's research hunt is just commercial hunting in disguise.
>I can assure that this is not the case.  The number of whales that the
>ships are permitted to kill this year is about 1/15th of what would
>make sense commercially and the sale of the meat will not pay for the
>fixed costs involved in the hunt.  But the researchers felt it would
>be an abomination to destroy good meat fit for human consumption.
>
>To give you a less provoking answer: The number of whales that is to
>be killed for research purposes this years is set by the scientists of
>the IWC, not by the Norwegians alone.  I trust the integrity of the
>IWC scientists to not set the number higher than absolutely necessary
>for scientific purposes.  However -- Norway has every intention of
>starting up commercial whaling of non-endangered species of whale
>again.  When we do, it will presented as such, and not under the guise
>of "research".
>
>|> Any comments are welcomed.
>That's very generous of you.
>--
>Disclaimer: My employer seldom even LISTENS to my opinion.
> 
>- gisle hannemyr  (Norsk Regnesentral)
>  OSI:   C=no;PRMD=uninett;O=nr;S=Hannemyr;G=Gisle (X.400 SA format)
>         gisle.hannemyr@nr.no                      (RFC-822  format)
>  Inet:  gisle@ifi.uio.no
>  UUCP:  ...!mcsun!ifi!gisle
>------------------------------------------------


....which I did add some more info to......

Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
From: sveini@mack.uit.no (Svein-Ivar Lillehaug)
Subject: Re: Whale Research
Organization: University of Tromsoe
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 00:46:31 GMT

Some more info to add to Gisle's posting

The scientific hunting of minke whales is just one small piece of the
work that is done in order to build a good model on what is going on
in the seas. Different kinds of information are collected about the
fish, the sea animals, the sea plants, the sea and so on. Man tries
to figure out (about the fish and the animals) where they are "borned",
how fast they grow, what they eat and where they eat, where they live,
where they swim, when-where and how many babies, where and how much
poison from the humans, who are they eaten by, how old do they get,
and so on.........

Based on this information man can build models to understand what is
going on in the sea system, and this Richard and all the others of
you, is something that we need to know if we still intend to use the
sea as a food reserve. The harvesting can be controlled and regulated 
according to models which are updated all the time. In this way we
can still manage to keep current endaged species and protect others
and, at the same time, get our food out of the sea harvesting.

As being a big eater in a big volum at the top of the chain, the
minke whale can not be excluded from this model. Especially not when
that same animal represent a big food reserve

In addition to what Gisle said, the hunting was done in areas that
were decided in advance. This in order to compare what they eat in
the different aereas with what type of fish and other things (based
on info from fishing) you can find in the same aereas. And, maybe
I should not mention it, but..., some are also doing research on the
meat to check out vitamins, proteins, fat, "health oil" and so on for
"ernaeringsmessige" questions. Actually, minke whale meat is way
more healthy to eat than for example cow meat. 

And finally, some are also keeping track of the minke whales movement
by radio transmitters. Together with counting of them, this is another
example of pieces out of the Norwegian research on the minke whale,
which again is just one piece out of a big program: THE SEA! 

So to all of you self-claimed-minke-whale-hunting-hater-environmentalists...:

Put your finger into the ground (or the sea) and start thinking!


Svein-Ivar

-a whale a day,
 keeps the doctor away


........which Richard replied back on......:

>Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
>From: richardt@ifi.uio.no (richard)
>Subject: Re: Whale Research
>Sender: richardt@ifi.uio.no (Richard Aronce Torres)
>Organization: IFI, Norway
>Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 15:30:09 GMT
>
>It was never my intention  that my inquiry will  start a flame war.  And
>I hope that it does not happen.  All I wanted to know was what
>the researh was for, i.e. what the researchers hope to find out - scientific
>results.  So, there is no need to be defensive or to be upset about
>my inquiry.  
>I thought that any research on  whales should
>be done in an international collaboration of researchers so that less
>whales will be 'slayed' for research purposes esp. when some types
>of whale species are endangered.
>I would like to thank those who gave  straight and  educational follow-ups
>such as those by Gisle and Svein Ivar.
>This posting ends my query about whale research. 
>richard

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I suppose that Greenpeace never have told you things like this...


Regards,
Svein-Ivar

-a whale a day,
 keeps the doctor away