From: frodek@forit.forut.no (Frode Kileng)
Subject: Re: Greenpeace and other misconseptions
Organization: Norwegian Telecom, Research Dep., Tromsoe, Norway
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 15:06:51 GMT
Reply-To: frode.kileng@tf.tele.no

(Sorry if you see this twice.  I messed up some of the numbers and tried
to cancel the first version....)

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.  

The problem is the food reservers.  The minke-whale eats whatever it
gets and because of this can adapt to variaton in the food-reserves.  
Some endangered whale species like the blue-whale eats only
'krill'(sorry but I couldn't find the english translation in my dictionary).  
Scientists have claimed that when the blue-whale and other
whale-species was nearly killed to extinction, the minke-whale population 
got rid of their competitiors of the food reserves.  This has made the
the minke-whale population growing to a larger number than it's natural 
for the species.   The huge minke-whale popluations is now claimed to
be one of the reasons behind the the slow growning of the blue-whale
population.

    Why is 800,000 too many whales?  How does it compare to
    historical (pre factory-ship hunting) populations?  

'Pre factory-ship hunting' !!!!!  (a common Greenpeace statement is about
this terrible factory-ships).  The Norwegian minke-whale hunting
has been done for hundreds (thousands) of years and NEVER with
factory-ships.  Hunting is done close to the coast with small family 
driven fishing boats of about 100 feets.  Did you watch
the news from Aberdeen in Scotland when the last IWC meeting was
taken place ?  Just in front of Greenpeace's ship Solo (4000 US lb.)
was a norwegian whale-boat (200 US lb)!   When Solo was engaged in
stopping the Norwegian scientific whale-hunting this summer people
said that the reason the ship never got close to the whale-boat itself, 
but used one of their fast 'rubber-boats', was because their was afraid
to ruin peoples impression of theese 'big factory ships'.

   I have more sympathy for Greenpeace now rather that less after 
   seeing how the whale industry and its apologists try to distort 
   public perception.

Can you tell me why we should stop hunting minke-whales if the hunting
is not a threat to the species ?  Some people in the world have the
cow as a holy animal, others think that meat should not be eaten by man
at all.  Why do you not follow their opinions.

How can you defend the whale-hunting done by US eskimos on endangered whale
species ?

The northern part of Norway is one least polluted part of the world.  One 
of the reasons is that we have very little industry.  The whole economy is
based on harvesting natural resources.  To asure that the harvesting the
fishing (and minke-whale) quotes are set by scientists.  The 
fishing-industry (and whale-industry) doesn't have any influence on
this process.

Ok.  We have to clean-up this discussion.  Lets summarize the
arguments.

  1. 
   - Greenpeace: The minke-whale is endagered and must not not be hunted
   - Scientific committie of IWC and the rest of the  worlds whale-researchers:
	The minke-whale is and has never been in danger of extinction.
  2.
   - Greenpeace:  The killing methods is barbaric.
   - Scientists:  Average killing time of 10 seconds and no escape of hurted
		  animals.			
  3.
   - Greenpeace:  We don't need the whale-hunting (no economic importance for
		  the world community.
   - I         :  It's vital for several small communities in the nothern-part
		  of Norway. (Or, do we really need chickhens)
  4.
   - Greenpeace:  The whale is an intelligent animal.
   - Scientists:  The size of the brain have nothing to do with 
                  intelligence.
   - I         :  Last century it was also stated that man was more
                  intelligent than wommen because of larger brain....

Greenpeace Norway has only 1500 members and no Norwegians in their board.
We have several other environmental organizations in Norway with tens of
thousands members.  It's interesting to look at those organizations opinion
on this matter.  One of the orgaizations (The Norwegian association of
nature conservation) have stated that Norway should not take up the
minke-whale hunting.  It's interesting to look on their arguments for
this : 'because of Norways reputation on environmental issues'.  I.e.
not because of any environmentally concerns about the minke-whale
hunting itself but because of the reputation organizations like
Greenpeace has given Norway.

After 2 months in this discussion I'm tired of beeing accused for
being a representative of 'the whaling industry' and other things.
Over and out !


Regards

Frode Kileng