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Whales aren't fish Oceans. If you wan't an explanation as to why fish don't feel pain then read the arcticle I put up.

You're missing the point PJ. I'm not saying that animals aren't intelligent or that they don't feel pain. You are the one saying that they don't feel pain, not me.

No, I'm saying some are intelligent and some aren't. Some feel pain and some don't. Just about every except the extreme animal libbers accepts that. 

What I'm saying is that your reasons for supporting a ban on some animals and not others is not objective and is largely hypocritical. You support an intelligence based ban on animals that are considered less intelligent than pigs, then expect us to believe that the same argument would not be used to ban the hunting of pigs and other animals.

Well you have just spent pages saying that we can't assess the intelligence of animals or their ability to feel pain. Now your willing to accept pigs are more intelligent than whales becauce one article says so. Your same ranking shows that small toothed whales and dolphins are more intelligent than pigs. For some of the larger whales the data is sketchy because they are more difficult to study. They can't be held in captivity for instance.

As I pointed out there are huge differences between the situation beween pig and whales. The former are under no threat, the latter have been severely deleted. The former are a pest and do huge economic damage in places where they have been introduced, the latter are in there natural habitat and the economic benifits of their harvest are marginal. Pigs are domesticated and this will never be practical for whales.   

You used 'scientific evidence' to support the ban, but now you reject that same evidence on the slightest pretext because it turns out that it doesn't actually support your argument, or that of Walter Starck.

Nonsense. Look at the Sneddon paper and the critique I put up. The Sneddon study is flawed from top to bottom. I don't use the post office method to assess scientific evidence. The weight lies with how rigorous the studies are and how well the conclusion match the natural observations - not the number of articles which support a particular view. I loked at the evidence and then supported the ban.

You expect us to believe that your totally arbitrary line in the sand will stay put once you achieve a ban on whaling, even though common sense would say otherwise. So far the closest you have come to explaining how we should decide what animals are totally protected from hunting is to protect those animals that you have read about on wikipedia.

Well I put up my opinions (and Walter Starcks) and I was criticised becauce they were merely 'opinions'. So I put up several articles including the Wiki one.  The Wikipedia article is a well balance summary on cetacian intelligence. It actually canvassed a range of views. I don't have to achieve a ban on whaling because we already have it (with a few exceptions). There are some exception for indigenous comunities which is a reasonable compromise. There is no sign of the sky falling in or it being used to ban fishing or other hunting.

You have avoided my point that we also have laws against animal cruelty. Why aren't these an 'arbitary line in the sand' which won't stay put. You could point to inconsistencies there too, even compared to the way we treat people. Some of that is part of being human.  In the US civil war General Grant once had a man tied to a tree for 4 hours for being cruel to a horse. In the battle the next day 5,000 men were killed ar maimed!

Now your willing to accept pigs are more intelligent than whales becauce one article says so.

No. I'm saying that as well as being fundamentally flawed, your own evidence contradicts your own argument.

Not at all. Just because there is some differerences in the way researchers rank animals is not reason to throw my whole case out. Just about all rank dolphins and small tooth whales near the top.



The weight lies with how rigorous the studies are

But none of them have any rigour at all. They are all subjective and anthropocentric.

Just a bland assertion. What is your knowledge of animal behaviour and physiology to make you such an authority.



The former are a pest and do huge economic damage in places where they have been introduced

So what about where they are not feral? I've asked that a couple of times and you conveniently ignored it.

I haven't ignored that at all. I don't know why your would try to say that when I could easily quote my past threads. 



Well I put up my opinions (and Walter Starcks) and I was criticised becauce they were merely 'opinions'.

Well at least you are conceding that there is nothing objective or scientific to Walter's silly claims. However, the criticism had nothing to do with it being 'merely opinions'. The criticism was based on where using such a subjective anthropocentric argument would inevitably lead.


I'll let you know what I concede if thats alright with you. Obviously a question of ethics or morals is not purely a scientific issue. He alluded to research and evidence of the intelligence of dolphins and whales but did not quote specific examples - fair enough seeing it was an editorial not a scientific paper. His description of the economic worth of whaling and the history of Japan's involvement was quite accurate, but then again not really a scientific matter.

You keep saying it is inevitable (bans on the hunting of other animals) despite of absolutely no evidence. I could just as easily say that if anglers/ fishermen align themselves with and support commercial whaling then we will be tarred with the same brush and be more likely to be singled out for bans.

You don't have the same problem with marine parks, which in this country have been hijacked by extreme green preservationists. 



The Wikipedia article is a well balance summary on cetacian intelligence.

According to wikipedia, there is nothing at all objective about attempts to measure animal intelligence. It is all subjective and anthropocentric. Furthermore, the fact that you read up more about one animal than another is not exactly solid ground on which to base a whaling ban.

Its hard to beleive you read the same article. there are dificulties and controverses in measuring human intelligence - do you think such measures are all subjective too?



There is no sign of the sky falling in or it being used to ban fishing or other hunting.

That's because there isn't a real ban. Japan is harvesting about 1000 of them each year. Do you really think the animal libbers are going to move on to their next target before the get the whaling ban written in stone? It's their only chance at the moment. Luckily common sense appears to be prevailing and the whaling ban is gradually slipping away. As soon as the IWC became an animal welfare lobby rather than a sustainable hunting lobby it lost it's mandate and countries like Japan now treat it with the contempt it deserves (politely of course).

Everyone knows the Japanese are exploiting a loophole that allows scientific research. The ban is not slipping away because of 'common sense' but because Japan has been busily bribing small island states with economic aid in order to stack the vote. Major countries immune to this such as Australia, the UK and the USA are firmly anti-whaling.

PS -  If you think whaling is the only hope of the animal libers then doesn't this put a hole in your argument that angling will be banned next?


You have avoided my point that we also have laws against animal cruelty.

No I haven't. I have responded to it multiple times already. There are a number of issues which you have brought up repeatedly, each time ignoring our responses to them. There are a number of big questions which you have left unanswered, despite them being repeated for you. I have no interest in repeating the same thing over and over again. This argument is not moving forward because you are ignoring the responses you get then starting again from the beginning. [/quote]

Well I'll respond to one now then. IQSRLOW put up draft legislation of animal cruelty laws which amounted to a toughening up of laws to the point that hunting and fishing would be illegal. Using your logic we should abolish our existing animal cruelty laws because they will inevitable lead to such bans.   

I hope the Rudd govt cops a caning over this...It was a gross misuse of taxpayer monies that will do absolutely nothing.

Vote grabbing pandering to the lowest common denominator

At least the coalition was honest about not giving a stuff about the whales

I don't think that is correct. I think the coalition knew that anything that they tried would be fiscally irresponsible and destined to fail. Legally the coalition knew that there was nothing they could do but the Rudd govt decided to pander to the green-fed uneducated voter base.

Now they are back pedalling on the priority that they gave it.

Me too. At least the coalition was honest about not giving a stuff about the whales. Now Labor is being torn between the far left and the mainstream.

For someone trying to start a political party and who has a policy on whaling you don't know much about the subject. I even told you that Australia has been actively anti-whaling along with the US and UK.




IQSRLOW put up draft legislation of animal cruelty laws which amounted to a toughening up of laws to the point that hunting and fishing would be illegal.

Those laws will not make hunting or fishing illegal. 

Using your logic we should abolish our existing animal cruelty laws because they will inevitable lead to such bans.   

If they never have before, why would you expect that to suddenly change?


The laws would have done, that was IQSRLOW's point. He highlighted the section which banned the hunting of animals for amusement. By saying we can't rank animals for intelligence or pain perception you are just making it easier to justifiy bans on angling.

Animal cruelty laws have been used to ban a form of hunting. The UK has recently banned fox hunting. 

I even told you that Australia has been actively anti-whaling along with the US and UK.

By active, do you mean allowing Japan to kill whales in our whale sanctuary? Or just that they told them it's not a nice thing to do?

By saying we can't rank animals for intelligence or pain perception you are just making it easier to justifiy bans on angling.

You can rank them all you want, but it is purely subjective and anthropocentric, thus you have no objective reason for expecting others to draw the line where you do. I am not making it easier to ban angling, you are. You are the one saying we should ban the hunting of animals for food over intelligence, animal cruelty etc. I am merely pointing out what should is obvious to everyone else - if you get that justification accepted, you will not be able to stop what other animals it is applied to.

Animal cruelty laws have been used to ban a form of hunting. The UK has recently banned fox hunting.

Did they eat the foxes?

What about pig hunting where they are not feral pests?

Why do you think that the quantity harvested is important? Surely if something is wrong, then doing it on a really large scale is more wrong, not less wrong. Imagine Hitler saying he should be able to continue killing Jews because it is a massive industry and employs so many people, and their entire societiy is now strucutred around it.

Australia is taking up the case against Japanese whaling in the international courts:

Whaling expert to consider court case
A world expert on the Law of the Sea and the International Court of Justice, the Cambridge law faculty chair James Crawford, has been drafted by the Federal Government to tackle Japanese whale hunting.

The Rudd Government is also seeking the views of its own lawyers, but it is expected that Professor Crawford would argue Australia's case if, as now seems likely, legal action proceeds.

Professor Crawford represented Australia in 1999 in a joint action with New Zealand against Japan over its huge so-called experimental catch of southern bluefin tuna in a case with parallels to the "scientific" whaling program Canberra brands a sham.

Taking the dispute before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea was a bold move, and Australia and New Zealand won the first round, but it was reversed on a jurisdictional technicality.

Professor Crawford is understood to have been asked to consider prospects for success if the dispute over whaling was taken to that tribunal as well as initiating action before the International Court of Justice.

Failure could strengthen Japan's push to re-open the 1986 ban on commercial whaling that it continues to circumvent through the scientific whaling loophole.

The Law of the Sea Convention, which came into force in 1994, requires parties to it to sustainably manage migratory fish species and refers to provisions of the 1946 Whaling Convention.

Tim Stephens, of the University of Sydney's law faculty, was on a panel of experts that made a submission last March to the Howard government on anti-whaling legal options.

"The bluefin tuna case shows Australia could make a successful argument before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on whales," Dr Stephens told the Herald yesterday. "And Professor Crawford would be the best man in the world to do that.

"He has appeared before the ICJ as well as the Tribunal for the Law of the Sea many, many times representing various governments from around the world."

One option is to take Japan before the International Court of Justice based on an argument that its intended slaughter of more than 900 whales this summer contravenes the Whaling Convention.

News that Professor Crawford has been brought into the fight against Japanese whaling comes as the Federal Government is under fire for being slow to dispatch the customs chartered vessel Oceanic Viking to collect photographic and other evidence to back legal challenges.

The Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, said two weeks ago that the ship would depart within a "few days" but it is yet to leave Fremantle.

The Government argued yesterday that its aim was to seek to maximise prospects for obtaining graphic photographic and video images of the slaughter and other evidence by choosing an optimal 20-day surveillance period.

Officials are working on a proposal to introduce reforms in the International Whaling Commission, where Japan is trying to overturn the commercial whaling ban by winning over developing-country members.

From Sydney Morning Herald:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/whale-watch/whaling-expert-to-consider-court-case/2008/01/04/1198950075821.html