Underneath was posted for facebook on January 22, 2014
Japanese Whaling is unethical?
The sentences underneath are gathered from many places in web site.
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This issue is highly contained cultural, historical and religious aspects.
What to be food for human and what to be enshrined as sacred animal.
In fact Japanese have worshiped wales as god and eaten as food.
There has long been a deep relationship between the Japanese and whales. Artefacts from the Stone Age, traditional arts, gravestones and monuments all point to the importance of the whale in Japanese society.
In Japanese culture, the entirety of a whale carcass is put to use with little waste, including use of the whale’s skin and internal organs.
Through Japanese food culture, art and literature, folk festivals and faith, the importance of the whale in Japanese culture is more clearly understood.
An old Japanese proverb states, “Seven bays benefit from just one whale,” illustrating that whaling brought great benefits to vast areas. Annual memorial services commemorating the soul of the whale were performed, graves and pagodas were created and death registries were set up across Japan in Buddhist temples*1.
After it was eaten and scrapped, the debris was buried in precincts and the memorial tower was built.
Hereto is in Kushimoto, Wakayama prefecture.
Similar whale-related mounds such as Kujira-baka (graves of whales), Kujira-hi (monuments for whales) and Kujira-kuyoto (pagodas erected in memory of whales) can be seen across Japan.
Around AD 676, the spread of Buddhism in Japan brought with it warnings against eating the meat of cows, poultry, wild boars and other land animals. Similarly, the oldest historical book of Japan, the Kojiki (AD 712) warned against the consumption of land animals. In this way, greater dependency on marine resources as a food source, including whales, emerged in Japan.
In the Middle Ages, whales were referred to as “Isana,” meaning “brave fish.” According to the “Shijohryu-Hohchousho,” a famous cooking book from the Muromachi era (AD 1392-1573), whale was regarded as the finest item on a menu. The consumption of whale meat spread widely throughout Japan during the Edo era (AD 1600-1867). Every part of the whale was carefully prepared and eaten in various prefectures across the country.
Examples of folk festivals and various forms of entertainment pertaining to whaling can be found to this day throughout Japan. The Ainu, native to the Hokkaido prefecture, perform whale dances, while in Mie prefecture whaling vessels are worshipped. In Nagasaki every seven years the annual festival is broadened to become the “Nagasaki-kunchi” festival. A paper-mache model of a whale, the “kujira-shiofuki” is constructed to honour and revere the giant fish.
Through these festivals, whales are thought to bring richness and happiness to the Japanese. They are a symbol of good luck and protection against danger.
Another example of whale use in the arts, was in classical Japanese puppetry, known as “ningyo-johruri” Baleen, or whalebone as it is more commonly referred to, was traditionally used in Japanese puppetry. The soft elasticity of the baleen created lifelike, smooth puppetry movement. Today, the stocks of baleen have been exhausted and necessary repairs to the puppets cannot take place. Without these baleen supplies, the art form of puppetry, which has been in existence since the 16th century, cannot continue in Japan.
Even today, people are engaged in whaling in various parts of the world.
Not all western countries are anti-whaling although anti-whaling attitudes are prevalent.
Generally Anglo-Saxon countries take an anti-whaling position, but Iceland, Norway and Denmark regard whales as food.
Why doN't you condemn them? Probably because they are white people?
According to a report from ITV News, (British news outfit) anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 dolphins are slaughtered by Peruvian fishermen in violation of Peruvian law.
Once the dolphins are captured, the Peruvian fishermen slice up the dolphins and use parts of the sliced dolphin as bait to capture sharks.
The remains of the dolphins are then thrown into the ocean, meaning up to 15,000 dolphin carcasses are dumped overboard.
The fishermen of Taiji, Japan capture around 2,000 dolphins last dolphin season, which is legal in Japan. Some of the dolphins are shipped live to marinas around the world. The remaining dolphins are then used for food and food byproducts.
So where does Sea Shepherd send their Cove Guardians?
To Peru where 15,000 dolphins are illegally slaughtered or to Taiji, Japan where around 2,000 dolphins are captured?
The answer is Taiji, Japan.
Further proof these foreigners who go to Taiji to document the dolphin activity are cowards and hate Japan / the Japanese.
They know if they go to Peru and behave there as they do in Taiji, they will get more than their feelings hurt.
If they have such a high level of compassion for the dolphins, then how come they do not demand their "Guardians" go where 15,000 dolphins are illegally being slaughtered as oppose to being where 2,000 dolphins are legally captured?
There are many countries other than Japan that are known for eating whale meat.
Among them are Norway, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Canada as well as the US state of Alaska. In the warmer waters are St. Vincent, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The people of these countries have long relied on whale meat as an important part of their diets.
Whales are important animals but if there are too many of them, they can become a problem.
If the number of whales grows too large, it is entirely possible that the whales, which eat the fish, could decrease the number of fish in the ocean.
This could be a serious problem because it could mean a shortage of food for the whales, destruction of the balance among species in the ecosystem, and problems for fishermen who need to feed their communities by fishing.
The people in the whaling communities are proud of that fact that their communities have a long history and tradition of whaling. Even today, the whaling is the heart of the community identity: people perform Buddhist memorial services for whales and hold whaling festivals to honour the whales.
However, without minke whaling, unemployment has increased and especially the young have left the communities for jobs in big cities. The communities' populations have been declining, and those who remain in the communities are mainly the older people. The people have tried to revitalise their communities by trying to promote tourism, but without active whaling to show, these are not so interesting to tourists.
Those who assert that the whale has a higher intelligence base their assertion on the large size of a whale's brain. It is simply natural for a whale which has large head to have a larger brain than those of other animals, but that does not necessarily mean that it has higher intelligence.
In comparing the size of animal brains, we should take into consideration not only its weight but also its proportion to the body weight. The proportion of a blue whale's brain to its body weight is 0.007% on the average, as compared with 1.93% for human beings.
The harbor porpoise has the highest proportion of 0.85% among cetaceans. Does that mean that the intelligence of a harbor porpoise is half the level of a human being and that of a blue whale is one hundredth of a harbor porpoise's? It is not necessarily so. It is not possible to determine the intelligence level with the brain's proportion to the body weight.
The late Dr. E.J. Slijper, who was a world authority on cetaceans, said "...it seems improbable that an animal which propels itself mainly with its tail should need a more highly developed brain than, for instance, a monkey which uses all its limbs so skillfully." On a similar note, Dr. Margaret Klinowska, a professor of Cambridge University and a member of the Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, said that "In most species of cetaceans, the brain is neither very large nor especially complex," adding that "whales betray little evidence of behavioral complexity beyond that of a herd of cows or deer."
We cannot agree with this view. Asking Japan to abandon this part of its culture would compare to Australians being asked to stop eating Kangaroo meat pies, Americans being asked to stop eating "Eggs n' Brains" and hamburgers and the English being asked to go without hare and "fish n' chips".
Attitudes toward animals are a part of national cultures deeply related with its history and religion.
No nations should try to impose their attitudes on others.
Anti-whaling countries regard whales as sacred, and want the ban on whaling to continue on the grounds that a humane killing method is not ensured or that whaling itself is unethical.
But it is questionable whether the whaling conducted by westerners in the past was humane or ethical.
To this argument, the westerners might respond that was the very reason for them to have halted whaling.
But this argument is nothing but a misconception. Whaling in western countries was conducted to collect whale oil, whether it was ancient sailing-boat-type whaling or modern whaling. It died out naturally as it lost its industrial importance after petroleum became more readily available.
On the other hand, whaling in Japan was mainly carried out for the production of meat, and because of strong demand for whale meat in the domestic market, whaling can still continue to be viable.
Not all western countries are anti-whaling although anti-whaling attitudes are prevalent.
Generally Anglo-Saxon countries take an anti-whaling position, but Iceland, Norway and Denmark regard whales as food.
Why don't you condemn them? Probably because they are white people?
