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Hello, today I am crossposting something I have already posted elsewhere. I have sanitized it for hatrack's viewing pleasure.
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Hello everyone, let's talk about WHALEWARS. The show you should be watching against your better judgment.
There are two shows on tv about infuriatingly stupid people Like, shows that document levels of stupidity so unbelievably extreme that it makes you angry just to watch it. These are shows that are made popular because they are giant train wrecks filmed in slow motion on camera.
One of these shows is Bridezilla. Let us not talk about Bridezilla.
The other one is WHALE WARS and let us talk about that.
WHALE WARS is a documentary about eco-terrorists. It is also a grotesque comedy designed to make you curl up in horrific-feeling pity and embarrassment over the foibles of tragically clueless people. Like The Office, or Arrested Development. Except Whale Wars is real. The Office and Arrested Development are not real. They are fictional stories, involving excellent actors who do their damnedest to act a fraction as clueless as the people in WHALE WARS are in real life. And they are, in real life, so dumb that it seems impossible that they have not all died from it. And they have a ship. A ship.
THE PEOPLE IN WHALE WARS ARE SO STUPID IT MAKES YOU ANGRY. THE ENTIRE SHOW IS A DOCUMENTARY OF PEOPLE BEING SO STUPID IT MAKES YOU WANT TO STRANGLE THEM ARRRGH FSJKSFJKSJFSKJF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
okay so a backstory. This is an animal planet show about a group of eco-radicals who are charitably described by Greenpeace as being "completely ███████ ███████" and who have a boat they call the Steve Irwin. It is captained by this guy named Paul Watson who is by and large the most incompetent sack of crap I have ever seen command any vessel. He is not fit to pull an empty wagon and you watch him futz around and make whimpering noises as he attempts to manage an entire damn ship. My uncle would have an aneurysm trying to watch this show what with him actually being a captain but seriously I live in a landlocked state and even I am not that far behind. Paul Watson's criminal negligence as a captain is enough to make my ears bleed. Entire articles have been written in newspapers about how the show is abhorrent less for its eco-terrorism but just basically that the crew is not seaworthy, the captain is an ignorant, impulsive, clueless eco-radical who constantly puts the crew at risk.
Within the first five episodes, the eco-guardians deliberately boarded another ship. the japanese whale catcher Yushin Maru, without consent, while flying pirate colors. The crew of this ship that had been boarded without consent, detained the people who came onto their ship. then the crew of the ec-guardian ship whined to the international community that the people who boarded the ship are now being held "hostage"
The first mate goes "Okay so they have our crew 'hostage,' and they refuse to give them back, so we are going to stage a NITE ATTACK."
The night attack is cramming four crewmembers into an inflatable boat in the frigid arctic, pointing them in the ostensible direction of where the japanese vessel is, then only later on deciding to send up a pilot to see if they can't find where the vessel actually is. The pilot goes up, surveys the area, finds the vessel, and informs the crew that the rescue squad has been sent in the completely wrong direction (and you could SEE the ship, too, but we won't talk about that). Then the boat gets lost and they lose radio contact. Then as they struggle to find their inflatable boat that they sent out to get lost at sea because they hadn't yet figured out which direction they could send it that would result in it encountering another ship, they decide another japanese ship is tailing them and it's time to attack THAT ship instead.
Except they can't attack the ship because these people are completely incompetent and they cannot manage their own ship and they are constantly unable to deal with things breaking down because they aren't well-trained crew at all, okay, but the plan was to board this other vessel and break its communication equipment, but they never get to try out this scheme because everything on the ship (the crane, their helicopter, all but one of their engines) is breaking, so they dock in melbourne, and, like, half the crew goes "screw it, we're outta here" so they have to refill their ranks with even stupider eco-radicals, so that the ship can go back out to sea, discover it is still being tailed by a ship that keeps the other ships far far away from them, and while they began formulating their obviously genius new plan to board this ship and hit it with rocks or something, the entire ship has an electrical failure. So they spend some time drifting aimlessly through an iceberg field without engines before hacking their electrical system back together in time to throw stink bombs onboard a whaling ship. while they are busy throwing stink bombs onto this ship the captain pretends he's been shot.
Then they run out of fuel, go home, and claim they have saved five hunnnndred whaaaaaaaaales, WHALEWARS.
Anyway that was just the FIRST season. You are not prepared for season two. NO ONE IS PREPARED FOR SEASON TWO. Season two makes them look like geniuses in season one. And this is going on RIGHT NOW.
^^^ BONUS STORY ON THAT ONE: The cameraman drops his camera and leaves because what is going on is so unimaginably stupid that he does not want to drown and he thinks it is incredibly likely. WHALEWARS.
posted
I thought my husband and I were the only people heartless enough to watch this for the comedic value.
I loved it when they had missing crewpeople and didn't want to wake the captain up because he was tired. Ummmm....if you have crew people who are in an inflatable boat in the arctic and you can't find them, nor can you make radio contact with them - to me, that sounds like something that might be a tad bit more important than the captain's beauty sleep.
Did you catch the episode where they had to radio the Japanese whalers for help locating their missing crewpeople? Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Wow. I kind of want to watch this now. I don't approve of over-whaling, but I approve even less of violent and stupid eco-terrorists.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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My best friend told me that since I love Deadliest Catch so much I might like this.
Near as I can tell, this is what Deadliest Catch would be if the crew were in a 24 hour drunken stupor, but even then I don't think they'd be nearly that stupid.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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You could remove over half of the heads of the crew of any given Deadliest Catch vessel and they would still lurch about in a manner more productive to not dying at sea than any of the WHALEWARS group.
The whalewars crew are trying to steer through ice and can't figure out how to effectively communicate concepts like "right" or "left" to the person piloting the craft.
They send a guy down to watch the hull buckle and tell him if it breaks he has to just sort of sit there and fix it. He is not given anything to do this with. He is just given orders to go down there uselessly so he can die if the hull does rupture. They would have no idea what to do if the hull ruptured. Is he supposed to hold it closed with his hands? Rub some ropes against it?
Meanwhile on the bridge the captain is going well whattamispossedado should I go starboard or port go port go port i can't i'm already all the way starboard (??) *thump whack griiind*
we're hitting ice how can this be??? whalewars.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Why the hell would they get that close to the ice pack to begin with? Watching any late in the season episode of Deadliest Catch would impress upon anyone the insane dangers of doing so, especially to a boat with an non-reinforced hull.
I'm watching a bit more of it now, and it is somewhat amusing, with the exception of the real danger they're in, and how heartbreaking it is to watch whales being gunned down. I'd say more, but I wouldn't want to risk this thread breaking down into any sort of whaling debate, if there would even be one.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I didn't want to watch this show because I dislike environmentalists and hate eco-terrorists. I'm still not going to watch this because of the same even if they are stupid, but it is nice to hear about the highlights.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Let me be very clear - I don't enjoy watching what happens to the whales. I think whales are awesome creatures and wish all whaling were illegal.
I do not approve of the tactics of the Sea Shepherds however.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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"Myself I find the concept alien. It's like the same blanket dislike for 'feminists.'
As if you would watch Glen Beck or Shawn Hannity. You have stated more than once your dislike of conservatives.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Let me be very clear - I don't enjoy watching what happens to the whales. I think whales are awesome creatures and wish all whaling were illegal.
I do not approve of the tactics of the Sea Shepherds however.
No worries Belle, I don't think anyone thought you were getting entertainment value out of whale killings.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Yeah pretty much the show's primary watchers have to fit into two groups.
1. people who really ARE that gooey about whales that they will cheer on the EKO WARRIORZ through hell and high water
2. people who watch the show because the sea shepards are buffoonishly inept and a wee bit crazy
Also I was amazed to see the vegan diet at sea. Good luck being cold, tired, and overloaded with carbs guys
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Let me be very clear - I don't enjoy watching what happens to the whales. I think whales are awesome creatures and wish all whaling were illegal.
Are you also going to forbid hunting of deer and/or slaughter of cattle? Because if not, you're forbidding people to kill things purely on the grounds, apparently, that some animals are cute and others aren't.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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You know, there are plenty of reasons to object to whaling beyond "whales are cute" that still don't apply to the slaughter of cattle.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Are you also going to forbid hunting of deer and/or slaughter of cattle? Because if not, you're forbidding people to kill things purely on the grounds, apparently, that some animals are cute and others aren't.
You're making a giant, assumptive leap to that rationale.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept that "whales are cute."
I can't quite manage it - and I don't think most people think about them that way. Even drawn pictures of whales are significantly different from land mammals that they tend to inspire awe more than anything else.
A long time ago - more years than I care to admit to - I did some volunteer work for Greenpeace. It was obvious that people who actually followed the issues that species like the blue whale were a higher priority than most seals.
But people don't identify with blue whales - not like they do with seals, especially the pups. Blue whale posters and material sold at a trickle - the baby seal posters flew out as fast as mailing tubes could be stuffed.
Never seen this show, but it's interesting that it draws enough of an audience to support it. I'd guess it's the "adventure" rather than the "cute" animals that draw viewers in.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Let me be very clear - I don't enjoy watching what happens to the whales. I think whales are awesome creatures and wish all whaling were illegal.
Are you also going to forbid hunting of deer and/or slaughter of cattle? Because if not, you're forbidding people to kill things purely on the grounds, apparently, that some animals are cute and others aren't.
Deer and cattle are endangered species since...?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You know, there are plenty of reasons to object to whaling beyond "whales are cute" that still don't apply to the slaughter of cattle.
Granted. Belle did not give any such reasons.
quote:You're making a giant, assumptive leap to that rationale.
Belle's exact words were, "I think whales are awesome creatures and wish all whaling were illegal." Do you see a moral difference between not killing things because they are cute, and not killing them because they are awesome?
quote:Deer and cattle are endangered species since...?
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Depends on the species of course, but for a long time. And the main reason is whaling, with dozens killed every year in accidents stemming from other man made problems like fishing gear and ship strikes.
But you know that already, so what's your real point?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Oh my gosh. You know what this thread made me think?
I want to see the crews from Deadliest Catch try to teach the crew from Whale Wars to sail a boat. That would be really funny. (Until the guys from Deadliest Catch beat the living crap out of the Sea Shepherds. Then it would just be bloody and pathetic.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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To be sure, there are species of whales that have made great strides in their recovery since the heyday of whaling - your Humpbacks and Minkes (and surprisingly, Bowheads). But even the species of "least concern" are still rare.
As for the ECO-WARRIARS, they do far more damage to their own cause than they help it. Partly because their methods are terroristic at best, but mostly because they're so effing bad at what they do.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Funny that this thread was posted today. My husband and I were just talking at lunch about this show. I was saying that they are completely ineffective and have to imagine are doing more environmental harm than good. A giant gas guzzling boat has to do more damage than the few whales they have saved. That said, I do wish the Japanese would stop whaling. Whales are too rare and too critical to the ecosystem to just kill for resources. Especially for a nation like Japan which has plenty of access to food.
Posts: 416 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:To be sure, there are species of whales that have made great strides in their recovery since the heyday of whaling - your Humpbacks and Minkes (and surprisingly, Bowheads). But even the species of "least concern" are still rare.
And the ones that have recovered are exactly the ones that are hunted. Such a surprise! As for being rare, nothing that weighs in excess of a hundred tons is ever going to be common in the sense that medium-sized animals like humans can be common. The question is whether the population is such that hunting threatens it, not the absolute numbers.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Are you a big fan of whale hunting, KoM? Because it's a really silly practice to waste your capital here defending, I have to say.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I don't give a damn about whale hunting. It's economically utterly unimportant except to maybe five hundred farmers who all voted the wrong way in both our EU referenda, and form part of the interest group that keeps Norwegian food prices fantastically high because they like to sit on their little farms and maintain the "cultural landscape" and think the rest of us ought to pay for them doing so. But, as objectionable as I find these people, I object even more to fuzzy-minded 'environmentalists' who believe that because whales are so awesome, stopping a harvest of a few hundred yearly through dishonest and sporadically violent tactics is a worthwhile use of their time and, even worse, public attention to environmental matters. There is only so much concern for the environment to be had, and wasting any of it on the dang whales - whose extinction would matter only at the level of "such a pity we can't see these wonderful animals anymore", much like the dodo - distracts attention from real issues that present actual dangers to human survival.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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They do still hunt whales in Norway, if wikipedia can be trusted.
Believe it or not, I took KoM's comment seriously and have been thinking about it. I think there are several things that really bother me about whaling - the main one is the fact that so many species have been endangered or are endangered. I know there are supposedly enough minkes to support the whaling the Norwegians and Japanese do, but it still seems like pushing our luck to kill many of them each year. Whales are very large creatures and take time to grow to maturity. Harvesting whales is not the same as harvesting, say, crabs. As a Deadliest Catch fan myself, I know they only take males over a certain size, leaving all females and younger males to preserve the harvest. That's why there are always more crab to catch each year. Whales take too long in gestation and growth to recover as quickly.
I don't know about Norway, but my understanding of the whalemeat industry in Japan is that whalemeat is very expensive and essentially just an indulgence for the very rich. I dislike slaughtering animals in order to provide delicacies for the rich.
True, no one needs steak to survive either. But I see a very big difference between animals that have been domesticated, bred, and raised as food animals vs. the killing of a wild animal.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:I don't know about Norway, but my understanding of the whalemeat industry in Japan is that whalemeat is very expensive and essentially just an indulgence for the very rich. I dislike slaughtering animals in order to provide delicacies for the rich
A friend of mine who lives in Japan brought back a tin of whale meat in sauce. It cost him less than the equivalent of 5 USD. In my understanding, it's not the easiest item to find, but neither is it prohibitively expensive on a small scale.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:The main one is the fact that so many species have been endangered or are endangered. I know there are supposedly enough minkes to support the whaling the Norwegians and Japanese do, but it still seems like pushing our luck to kill many of them each year.
This is not a totally unreasonable concern, but it does not connect well to reality. The yearly catch is tiny compared to the population of minke.
quote:I don't know about Norway, but my understanding of the whalemeat industry in Japan is that whalemeat is very expensive and essentially just an indulgence for the very rich. I dislike slaughtering animals in order to provide delicacies for the rich.
Why? Do you also object to running diamond mines in order to provide pretty shinies for the rich? (I'm aware that most diamond mines are run in fairly objectionable ways; I'm asking now about principle rather than the diamond mines we actually have.) How about computer-chip factories to provide powerful video cards for the rich? (Noting that anyone who can afford the sort of card required to run a modern FPS game is certainly in the top quintile of world income.) And, finally, how about running pig farms to provide pork for the tables of the rich? Again, if you can afford to eat pork on a regular basis you're quite wealthy by world standards. Are you sure you are not just objecting to a thing you don't personally do mainly out of habit?
I also note in passing that whale meat is, by my father's report (he grew up in northern Norway when it wasn't a place with a lot of rich people) greasy and not very nice. It's not the sort of thing that naturally becomes a delicacy for the wealthy. In Norway, these days, the market for it comes basically from people either objecting to Greenpeace, or having some nostalgic attachment to the food of their youth. When whale hunting was economically important, the actual meat was a byproduct; it was oil and ambergris that supported the huge industrial fleets that nearly wiped out the species.
quote: But I see a very big difference between animals that have been domesticated, bred, and raised as food animals vs. the killing of a wild animal.
Why? Isn't this just another manifestation of 'cute'? What is the difference between objecting to killing 'cute', killing 'awesome', and killing 'wild' that makes the first two unreasonable and the last reasonable?
Edit: Rephrase for clarity. Consider the sentence "I object to killing whales because they are X". What about 'wild' makes the sentence reasonable where 'cute' and 'awesome' do not?
[ June 20, 2009, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Belle's exact words were, "I think whales are awesome creatures and wish all whaling were illegal." Do you see a moral difference between not killing things because they are cute, and not killing them because they are awesome?
Here's part of your problem, KoM. Belle's statement was conjunctive, not causative. It could very well be that she thinks whales are awesome and that whaling ought to be illegal for a separate reason. I think that's what she was getting at in her last post.
That said, I don't personally see a big difference between slaughtering domesticated animals and hunting wild ones.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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"Cute" is just a tool that environmentalists have used to draw attention to the cause. A marketing tool, no more. If you want to believe that that's the only reason why preserving species is important, then you're fooling yourself.
BTW, KoM has used the argument that the only reason people become religious is that they were taught to be religious by their families and the dominant culture. Pretty ironic then, that this guy from Norway supports whaling, and doesn't seem to acknowledge that his background might have an effect on his opinion.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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The point was not raised before; obviously growing up in Norway matters for my views on whaling. That said, would you like to suggest a fact about whaling which my background has prevented me from considering? Note that it is very easy to suggest such facts for theists; for example, the number of Christians who have seriously considered the Koran with an eye to possibly converting is tiny.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I would think that population sizes and long-term viability might have an effect on what you choose to kill. Wild deer are in no danger of dying off, and in some instances suffer from overpopulation. To me, it is not wrong to kill a deer in season. Chickens are bred to be meat, but I do have qualms about eating mass-produced poultry when I know many of the animals have suffered to get to my plate. I have problems with killing an animal for only one part and not using the rest, for instance only taking the tusks or skins. These are my ethics.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote:That said, would you like to suggest a fact about whaling which my background has prevented me from considering?
Your earlier statements:
quote:you're forbidding people to kill things purely on the grounds, apparently, that some animals are cute and others aren't.
and your comparison to the dodo indicates that you aren't considering that in the absence of human predation whales historically have had very large populations and ranged all over the world, filling numerous ecological niches. The idea that such a dominant figure in the ecosystem should become extinct should be especially troubling, if in fact the only reasons they are being hunted is so that people can eat food that by your own description is "greasy and not very nice." and that "the market for it comes basically from people either objecting to Greenpeace, or having some nostalgic attachment to the food of their youth." Those are pretty pitiful reasons to drive such species to extinction. So why do you find such strong objections?
The dodo population, in comparison, was limited to one island and had very little impact on the world's ecosystems.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Once again, I acknowledge that there are good grounds for regulating whale hunts, and for not driving them extinct. But in Belle's post, to which I was responding in what you quoted, there was no hint of any such reasoning, only the 'awesome' bit. Further, as I already pointed out, the whale species being hunted - minke, to be precise - are in no danger of extinction, there are literally hundreds of thousands of them.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I don't give a damn about whale hunting. It's economically utterly unimportant except to maybe five hundred farmers who all voted the wrong way in both our EU referenda, and form part of the interest group that keeps Norwegian food prices fantastically high because they like to sit on their little farms and maintain the "cultural landscape" and think the rest of us ought to pay for them doing so. But, as objectionable as I find these people, I object even more to fuzzy-minded 'environmentalists' who believe that because whales are so awesome, stopping a harvest of a few hundred yearly through dishonest and sporadically violent tactics is a worthwhile use of their time and, even worse, public attention to environmental matters. There is only so much concern for the environment to be had, and wasting any of it on the dang whales - whose extinction would matter only at the level of "such a pity we can't see these wonderful animals anymore", much like the dodo - distracts attention from real issues that present actual dangers to human survival.
I don't think anybody here supports the "dishonest and sporadically violent" tactics of certain environmentalists. For f***'s sake, this is a thread dedicated to making fun of those kinds of people.
As for whether hunting threatens whales, you do realize that the only reason those species recovered is because of a near-worldwide ban of whaling since the 1970s, right? Sure, the animals were never as abundant as mosquitos, but when you go from a population of 50,000 to a population of 325 (as in the case of the Northern Finback Whale), you are absolutely threatening the population.
Furthermore, it is not true that "the ones that have recovered are exactly the ones that are hunted." Well, I'll grant you that the species that have recovered were species that were hunted. But the reason for that should be obvious - if they hadn't been hunted, there would be nothing to recover from. However, virtually every species of large whale was hunted to a fraction of its original population this past century, and many of them have not recovered well. The aforementioned finbacks are back to around 3000 (from a pre-whaling population of more than 500,000). Antartic Sei whales are still stuck at about one-fifth their original population - and this was a species that wasn't even hunted until the advent of the harpoon gun in the '50s. I can't find a pre-whaling population estimate for the right whale, but its current population is around ~10,000. At least 90,000 were killed during the heyday of right whale hunting between 1900 and 1937, when right whaling was banned worldwide. That's right - it's taken 70 years for them to recover to the point of having no more than ten percent of their original population.
I'm not particularly worried about the levels of hunting that happen today. Japan and Norway combined don't come anywhere near the routine catch numbers from the '60s, and probably aren't taking any species at rates higher than their reproductive rates. But the kill rates are only as low as they are because of pretty monumental efforts over the past 30 years by non-whacko environmentalists. Not everybody who works against whaling is a Sea Shepherd.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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[quote]Furthermore, it is not true that "the ones that have recovered are exactly the ones that are hunted." Well, I'll grant you that the species that have recovered were species that were hunted. But the reason for that should be obvious - if they hadn't been hunted, there would be nothing to recover from.[/qote]
You are misreading my sentence, which perhaps was not quite clear. The species that have not recovered well - such as the ones you give statistics for - are not being hunted. I do not believe, as your impression seems to be, that hunting causes recovery!
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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That is not my impression. I interpreted your statement as that the whale species that were being hunted have bounced back. I may have misunderstood what you meant by "hunting" - are you referring to whaling as it is practiced today? Because I was talking about the complete history of whaling.
Anyway, I apologize if I misunderstood what you were saying. Like I said, the limited whale hunting that happens today isn't terribly worrisome from a sustainability perspective. Assuming they aren't flat-out lying about their catch quotas, Japanese and Norwegian whaling isn't going to negatively impact populations to any significant degree.
My point was that, prior to the international moratorium on whaling begun in the 1970s, every single species of large whale was hunted nearly to the brink of extinction. It was only through massive PR efforts and a ton of lobbying by environmentalist coalitions (operating, it's important to point out, through legal channels and via educating the public rather than idiotic stunts) that led to the signing of the moratorium and the cessation of large-scale whaling. That's the only reason the few species to recover are doing as well are they are.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Sure. The people who fought for a temporary moratorium and eventual quotas in the sixties and seventies were sensible, rational environmentalists who wanted to impose regulation on what would otherwise be a tragedy of the commons. (Even then, they'd have been SOL if whale oil had still been economically important. Big oil saved the whales as much as anyone did. The problem was that there was a lot of overcapacity in the whaling industry, and it had to be wound down in an orderly manner, rather than everyone going out for the last couple of whales and then going bankrupt, with the whales extinct.) And they succeeded! In fact, they succeeded so well that the only people today who think whaling is a first-order (or even third-order!) environmental concern are nuts on the order of PETA, and their dupes. Yet people have been so well trained that you say "whaling" and the instant Pavlovian response is either "Awesome intelligent animal - should not kill" or, for the slightly more sophisticated, "extinction risk". The latter is untrue and I trust my objections to the former are clear.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Whales need new warriors, these lack luster hippy's are out there playing like theyre pirates but with the moral high ground. No they are not getting paid, I dont expect that any of them are getting some form of college credit for thier work, which is admirable, but atleast they could be working as hard as if they were....
But honestly, this seems like a great thing to sign up for if your too lazy and idealistic to get a real job. Oh yeah, isnt the output from thier boat and helicopter harmful to the overall ecosystem too? Best part is that they never stop anybody from doing anything, kinda like that tattle tale with no friend in elementary school, just empty threat.
Bad for whales, good for my self esteem.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:I want to see the crews from Deadliest Catch try to teach the crew from Whale Wars to sail a boat. That would be really funny. (Until the guys from Deadliest Catch beat the living crap out of the Sea Shepherds. Then it would just be bloody and pathetic.)
Actually, what I think would be cool in a perverse sort of way is to switch the crews entirely.
Crab prices will skyrocket, and I'd be willing to bet they'd be stopping the hell outta some Japanese whalers, heh.
I've only seen two episodes so far, and while I wasn't impressed with the 'competence' displayed, I haven't seen the breathtaking stupidities y'all have described.
Though there was one. In one of the inflatables, someone banged their head on a console because they were in dangerous seas (and actually, come to think of it, in pursuit of a whaling vessel that they ought to have known could outrun them). So the pilot of this particular inflatable, he stops the boat so this bunch of untrained incompetents can see what's wrong.
They have no means of airlifting the woman (who had a fractured jaw it turns out) out of there, and he stopped the freakin' boat!
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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No, what would happen if the Deadliest Catch crew took over for the Sea Shepherds is Sig Hansen would set crab pots and make a fortune while complaining that his crew isn't working hard enough. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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However, virtually every species of large whale was hunted to a fraction of its original population this past century, and many of them have not recovered well. The aforementioned finbacks are back to around 3000 (from a pre-whaling population of more than 500,000). Antartic Sei whales are still stuck at about one-fifth their original population - and this was a species that wasn't even hunted until the advent of the harpoon gun in the '50s. I can't find a pre-whaling population estimate for the right whale, but its current population is around ~10,000. At least 90,000 were killed during the heyday of right whale hunting between 1900 and 1937, when right whaling was banned worldwide. That's right - it's taken 70 years for them to recover to the point of having no more than ten percent of their original population.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
