Why Does The World Tolerate This Cruelty?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44307396
how much "research" do they need to do? barbarians.

[cassa333]

It is a well know ‘fact’ that it has nothing to do with research and everything to do with commercial sale of the carcass left after the half ounce of ‘research material’ is taken.

[ummmm]

What can the world do to stop it?

It's awful.

[waterboatman]

That is not for research. It's for the table. A big delicacy in Japan.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Why?

For exactly the same reason as we tolerate the torture of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry.

[NoMercy]

It's about time they were hit with severe economic sanctions

[NoMercy]

v_e, we breed cattle, etc, for the meat trade, but minke are just being hunted into extinction. There's a big difference.

[waterboatman]

I agree NM, but that won't happen because of trade.

[1ozzy]

From your own link TTT.

//Figures from charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) show that many countries other than Japan still catch whales.//

//Norway and Iceland still hunt whales for meat, the former rejecting the moratorium and the latter only partially agreeing.//

So if they don't try to hide behind the "research" banner are they less barbaric?

[vetuste_ennemi]

/v_e, we breed cattle, etc, for the meat trade, but minke are just being hunted into extinction. There's a big difference.//

OK, NoMercy, give me an answer which, I hope, is not consistent with your sobriquet:

What's the moral difference?

[ummmm]

Because Whales are not farmed.

[emmie]

its barbaric to hunt them and its time it was stopped, whoever does it.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Ummmm and Emmie. Only one consonant between them. It's like two women arriving at a party wearing the same frock.

OK, girls, I'm being facetious. But neither of you are answering my question. Are we talking about the suffering of individual pigs and minke whales? Or the survival of pigs and minkes as a species?

[ummmm]

ve - you aren't stupid so you know the difference.

[vetuste_ennemi]

//ve - you aren't stupid so you know the difference//

I know the difference between hunting the minke to extinction on the one hand, and breeding pigs forever in order to give me my bacon and eggs, Ummmm.

I've got that[i bit. And if the [i]only] moral issue is the preservation of all extant living species then argument over.

But it's not the only moral issue, is it? Farming may secure the future of Porcus (or is it Sus) as a species or genus, but what of the life of the individual pig who is bred and slaughtered to give you your bacon sandwich?

[1ozzy]

Many animals that are not farmed are caught, slaughtered and eaten.

Should all fishing boats be banned?

[1ozzy]

//and breeding pigs forever in order to give me my bacon and eggs,//

Never tried pig eggs VE, is it like caviar?

[ummmm]

ve - we can't control the breeding of whales, we can for land animals.

[NoMercy]

122 of those Minke were pregnant.

[vetuste_ennemi]

(Got it wrong again, VE - must try harder)

I was trying to say (a criticism of the OP) that the Japanese
who kill minkes for food aren't worse than we who kill pigs and sheep for the same reason.

The processes involved in the slaughter may be distressing to the animal. They may also be distressing to the observer

VE in an earlier, far younger incarnation was a butcher's boy. Just got driving licence. Once a week up to the local abattoir to collect a couple of pig carcasses. It's a kind of fenced carousel. Pigs ushered in, travel round in a slow clinkety-clunk kind of way, then reach "collection" point when tilty device encloses and upturns pig. And wide mechanical knife moves across and slices through pig's neck. The next pig on the carousel may or may not have a sense of this imminent fate. Anyway it squeals. Those squeals and the smell of the blood spilt are not good.

[ummmm]

Again VE....we can't control the breeding of sea life so they need more protection. It's not unknown to artificially inseminate pigs.