Are Whales Worth Saving?

[jimmydasaint]

Are whales just evolutionary failures that should not be expected to survive the increased population of humans? Or is there any ethical considerations which mean that we, as humans, should really be interested in saving the whale? Or any other endangered species for that matter.

 

Was President Bush correct in confidently asserting the following :

I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.

George W. Bush

Link

 

On a serious note, Greenpeace have taken an aggressive stance towards whaling and have mentioned the following:

 

Whaling

 

Overexploit, cheat, deplete. The cycle of greed behind the global whaling industry drove one whale population after another toward oblivion.

 

It is still not known if some species will ever recover, even after decades of protection.

 

Facts and figures

 

The statistics say it all. The blue whales of the Antarctic are at less than 1 percent of their original abundance, despite 40 years of complete protection. Some populations of whales are recovering but some are not.

 

Only one population, the East Pacific grey whale, is thought to have recovered to its original abundance, but the closely related West Pacific grey whale population is the most endangered in the world. It hovers on the edge of extinction with just over 100 remaining.

 

Link

 

What is the ethical position from a scientific or philosophical viewpoint?

Edited July 19, 2010 by jimmydasaint

[Moontanman]

I think that bringing any species to extinction is unethical, i tend to think that all animals deserve to exist as much as we do in the general scheme of things. i tend to be brain chauvinistic in that I think that animals capable of conscious thought deserve to be allowed to live with minimal interference from us. Whales are indeed part of the food chain as ultimately we are. i see no reason to hunt whales at all much less to extinction, their flesh is close to being poisonous to eat to start with and i think the Earth as a place to live will be much poorer when they are gone. Like many large animals, humans have pretty much squeezed them out of the ecosystem and they live mainly because we let them live. I'm not sure if i like the idea of cockroaches being the only animal we share the globe with. it's important to note that once gone a species of animal is gone, no bring backs, even if we bring back something like mammoths there is no room for them in the natural world and they would forever be curiosities in a zoo...

[jimmydasaint]

Thank you for the reply Moontanman - most of which I agree with. I was trying to establish if saving animals or plants on our Earth is a purely ethical issue or is science involved. I just wondered if there was a tension between a scientific viewpoint and an ethical viewpoint.

 

Does 'Science' favour the preservation of other species on Earth? I really don't know the answer but would appreciate comments on it.

 

"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

 

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

 

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.

 

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

 

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother...

 

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Chief Seattle's apocryphal speech

[Moontanman]

It is a pretty good question, in this day and age you can find someone who will bow up at the idea of killing anything. i have to fall somewhere in the middle, I trapped muskrats for their fur when I was a kid, they tasted pretty good too, best small animal wild meat you'll ever eat. How ever the idea of smacking baby seals in the head sticks in my throat. From a purely scientific view point we have to consider the ecology and ramifications of loosing even on part of the food web. Ethically it's a mine field, what is more important supporting 20 billion people like kings or a whale? I am a big advocate of space colonization, not because it will remove people from the earth but because we can spread the ecology of the planet. i ascribe to the "Rare Earth" theory for the most part which means that every complex life form is extremely rare and should be protected to some extent at least. Then again i like to eat meat too.... and I'm not shy about killing to eat... I know some real scientists who agree with my patchy idea of saving the animals, but they eat meat too....

[jimmydasaint]

I suspect that, as you have stated Moontanman, that a scientific justification can be found due to the importance of whales in marine foodwebs. For example:

But their large body sizes and high metabolic rates make them important players in ocean food webs, and they are found throughout the world's oceans.

 

"The whales were and are important just because they are so big and so abundant," Estes said. "How different are the oceans when you remove these animals? That's what we wanted to explore."

 

This question has important implications for the conservation and management of the great whales. Management strategies must be considered not only in terms of their effects on the sustainability of whale populations, but also in terms of how they will affect the broader ocean ecosystems in which whales are key players.

 

In the book's introduction, Estes describes how he stumbled onto this issue in the first place through his investigations into the collapse of the sea otter population in southwest Alaska.

 

He and his colleagues came to suspect that killer whale predation was causing the sea otter decline. They eventually proposed that whaling prompted a dietary shift in killer whales that had previously preyed on large whales.

 

As the great whales became scarce, the killer whales turned to smaller marine mammals, including seals, sea lions, and sea otters, all of which underwent marked population declines.

 

This remains a highly controversial hypothesis, and various aspects of it are examined in several chapters of the new book.

Link

 

The hypothesis may be controversial but it appeals to logic. We cannot afford to destroy parts of the web of life so that we may preserve other species that we may need to protect our own food supply.

[Ophiolite]

I think that bringing any species to extinction is unethical,

I might make an exception in the case of homo sapiens.

[jimmydasaint]

I might make an exception in the case of homo sapiens.

 

I sometimes wonder mate. However, which animal can write words as inspirational as this:

 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

 

Link

 

And this is what puts us apart from other animals. It is the occasional elevation of thought to the sublime or inspirational and to show an amazing neuroplasticity instead of being hard-wired to an instinctive behaviour. Time will prove whether we are worthy of saving or not. I think the time will come when the world starts to run out of fossil fuels. Then the rich and influential countries of the world will enter into conflicts to preserve their energy supplies - it seems inevitable.

 

Ref: 'Small is Beautiful' by E.F. Schumacher

Link to Book Review

[PhDP]

IMHO, we should really stop focusing (and spending millions) on cute animals (most often mammals or birds).

[Moontanman]

IMHO, we should really stop focusing (and spending millions) on cute animals (most often mammals or birds).

 

 

I agree, saving ecosystems is more important than the animals in them, if you save a whale and it has no where to live what have you gained?

[DctrZaius]

I truly believe that the general masses would be stuffing their faces with whale meat if it could be factory farmed. There's nothing special about whales. As the Japanese said, how is them eating whales any more immoral than Westerners eating sentient beings like cows, or in my country's case, their national animal-kangaroos? If anything it's actually less cruel to allow a whale to behave in its natural way and then have it suddenly die than cramming cows into a feedlot for the last 9 months of their lives with only 4 square metres of space each and then lead them into a terrifying slaughter house. Is there actually anything more special about whales than cows? I think the criticism against hunting whales from Western cultures is completely hypocritical. I don't agree with killing endangered species but killing 200 minke whales every year doesn't raise any moral dilemmas for me.

[Edtharan]

I truly believe that the general masses would be stuffing their faces with whale meat if it could be factory farmed.

Yes, a lot of the reason that Whales are now considdered protected is that there is not very many of them. They take a long time to mature and are slow to breed. This means that as a high intensity source of protein they are very poor.

 

If they were a much easier animal to breed and domesticate, then I don't doubt that they would have been farmed long before now.

 

There's nothing special about whales. As the Japanese said, how is them eating whales any more immoral than Westerners eating sentient beings like cows, or in my country's case, their national animal-kangaroos? If anything it's actually less cruel to allow a whale to behave in its natural way and then have it suddenly die than cramming cows into a feedlot for the last 9 months of their lives with only 4 square metres of space each and then lead them into a terrifying slaughter house. Is there actually anything more special about whales than cows?

Well, there is no evidence that cows are sentient, but for that matter nither is there fore whales. But, the level of inteligence (thought to be necesary for sentience) is much higher in whales than cows (or Kangeroos).

 

There was an interesting talk on TEd recently about plant inteligence (link:

)and I think this is actually an important point. We have been brought up to think plants are not inteligent at all, that they have no "processing" capacity as they don't have brains (neural cells in a network).

 

However plants do have complex responses to external and internal stimuli that go beyind a pure chemical response to their environment. They have non local responses where one part of the plant will sense something, and another distant part of the plant will respond to that stimulus, indicateing rapid signalling across the plant (a network). These signals are ahown to be conducted theough cells having an action potential, just like a neuron, but with the cell being a plant cell and not a neural cell.

 

So, if plant have the capacity to show complex responses using a netowrk of cells that can process that information in a similar way to our neurons, all this means is a plant has developed structures similar to animals but through a different and unique method. As plants and aniamls diverges long before animals developed any form of proceeings and signalling structure (back in the single celled days), then we should not be suprised that their structures, although seeming to do the same tasks are constructed differently.

 

But, as to my point: Why should we think of animals as more special than plants? Plants respond to injury in a similar way to aniamls (they act to protect themsleves), it is just that they can't get up and walk (or run) off. they responses are different, but they do respond.

 

In the TED talk, the presenter talks about how plants use these signalling systems and the vast number of them they have (more than some animals in fact). So if we are going to talk about the ethics of killing and eating aniamls because they can sense when they are injured and try to protect themselves (and thus we considder it cruel to cause that harm), then we also have to considder plants as well because they too have the ability to sense harm and will try to protect themsleves as well.

 

I think the criticism against hunting whales from Western cultures is completely hypocritical. I don't agree with killing endangered species but killing 200 minke whales every year doesn't raise any moral dilemmas for me.

Whale kills are not quick. Typically the whale is harpooned and then drowned, but as the whale is able to surface and breath, the whale must first be exhausted before it will drown. Not a pleasent way to go and it take a long time.

 

I do agree that factory farmed aniamls is similarly cruel as it causes suffering over a long time. However, the actual killing of animals like cows is typically (in most developed countries) is relativly quick. It is intended to be faster than the neural conductive speed, so the aniaml shouldn't feel the killing blow - however sometimes it is accidentally slower if the first blow misses, but then it is typically over in a few seconds, but then compare that to how aniamls (of the size we are typically using as food) are killed by predators in the wild, this can take anywhere from minuites to several hours if the predators have to chase them down (like in the case with wolves).

 

So for me, there are 2 main factors that influence my decision to purchase food:

1) The suffering endured.

2) The degree of sentience (based on the level of inteligence).

 

High levels of suffering I considder cruel (including a lower degree of suffering over a long time is also considdered a high level of suffering) as does the organism's ability to be aware of any harm being done to it (as someone who suffers from chronic pain, I have had to understand the difference between Pain, Suffering and Injury - until you know the difference between them you can't really make arguments about them as you would not have an understanding of what you are discussing).

[Mr Skeptic]

What if you think about it from a trophic levels point of view? Whales eat krill/plankton, which puts them up near the base of the ocean food chain. Compare to tuna which eat fish. I think whale meat would be more ecologically sustainable, but of course we need to make sure we don't hunt them to extinction to do that.

[Moontanman]

What if you think about it from a trophic levels point of view? Whales eat krill/plankton, which puts them up near the base of the ocean food chain. Compare to tuna which eat fish. I think whale meat would be more ecologically sustainable, but of course we need to make sure we don't hunt them to extinction to do that.

 

 

Not exactly...

 

http://articles.cnn.com/2000-07-26/nature/toxic.whalemeat.enn_1_whale-meat-international-whaling-commission-iceland?_s=PM:NATURE

 

A 1998 study by the International Whaling Commission determined levels of contamination among some marine mammals are so high that the animals would be classified as hazardous waste sites if they were on land.

 

Several reports circulated at the International Whaling Commission meeting in July about the level of contaminants of whale meat in Japan, Phillips added. "Building on previous studies scientists have just reported new contaminants data from Japan, she said. "They detected mercury some 1,600 times above the government permitted level as well as large amounts of organic mercury and cadmium in whale meat that is widely available."

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUST6359120070801

 

Whalemeat in Japanese school lunches found toxic

(Reuters) - Whalemeat served in school lunches in an area of rural Japan are contaminated with alarming levels of mercury, a local assemblyman said on Wednesday, calling for a halt in plans for the meat to be shipped to schools nationwide.

[Mr Skeptic]

Not so fast, mercury levels is not the same thing as trophic level. Compare:

http://onlinelibrary...0829.x/abstract

 

The trophic level (TL) of tunas belonging to each size class was closely correlated to weight, starting from ca 3.0 TL for Group I and reaching 4.4–4.8 TL for the giants. Bluefin tuna, from small juveniles to giants, showed a shift in feeding preferences due to different use of habitats and food items as a function of the life stage.

 

But the juveniles are too small to eat.

 

http://icesjms.oxfor.../3/467.full.pdf

 

Trophic levels ranged from 3.2–3.4 in

baleen whales and sea otters, to 3.8–4.4 in most pinnipeds and odontocete whales, to

4.5–4.6 in killer whales.

 

Because the dominant plant in the ocean is microscopic, most of our seafood is going to eat zooplankton and so be at the 3rd trophic level or higher. So baleen whales are really low on the food chain, much lower than adult tuna, and comparable to sardines.

[Moontanman]

Why would trophic level be more important than the PCB, pesticide, and heavy metal content? Whales are very long lived creatures, even baleen whales eat fish, they have a very high food intake, and they build up very high levels of environmental toxins. And then there is all that whale poop!

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101012101255.htm

 

Whale Poop Pumps Up Ocean Health

 

 

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2010) — Whale feces -- should you be forced to consider such matters -- probably conjures images of, well, whale-scale hunks of crud, heavy lumps that sink to the bottom. But most whales actually deposit waste that floats at the surface of the ocean, "very liquidy, a flocculent plume," says University of Vermont whale biologist, Joe Roman.

[QuantumEntangled]

I wish to first clarify that species become extinct naturally all the time. But, I feel this is not the question that was intended.

 

Each time a species goes extinct due to human activity the entire ecosystem loses. It is a balance that nature manages on her own quite nicely. However, we humans have become more powerful than nature. Our activities, once acceptable, is slowly being realized as not acceptable. Much too slowly. Many more species are becoming extinct than nature can compensate for. I find it inappropriate, and morally distasteful (no offense, just being honest), to think that any one species is less important than the others. They are all important, smart or not, pretty or not, tasty or not.

 

Peace guys