I like whales. I REALLY like whales. I wish the Japs and the eskimos would stop hunting and killing whales. But what they eat is their business.

Australia has no more right to tell the Japs what to eat, than the Indians have to tell Australians that we must not eat beef. Or no more right than the Jews or the Muslims have to demand that Australians must stop eating shellfish and pork.

This is probably the first (and most sensible) contribution I have seen on this subject for years. We have no business dragging others into court over this, and it is doubly stupid when we see it damages our own trade and won't work anyway. There are enough whales to eat a few and still watch them swim past our coast.

"Australia has no more right to tell the Japs what to eat, than the Indians have to tell Australians that we must not eat beef. Or no more right than the Jews or the Muslims have to demand that Australians must stop eating shellfish and pork."

If Australians shot explosive harpoons into cows or pigs heads and then dragged them across the paddock to the slaughter house then I think everyone around the world would condemn us.

Interesting article here from almost ten years ago by David Neiwert 'Environmentalism and white supremacy':

http://dneiwert.blogspot.hu/2004/01/environmentalism-and-white-supremacy.html

Watson not only rates a mention, but for the company he keeps, John Tanton.

From a surfers' for environment blog The Inertia, Tetsuhika Endo writes 'Confronting Paul Watson Sea Shepherd'

" Our support tends to coalesce around two particular NGOs wherein there is considerable cross-pollination, both in their participants and their media presence. I refer to Surfers for Cetaceans, spearheaded by Dave Rastovich and the more widely famous Sea Shepherd. If we really hope to stop the hunting of whales, which we should, we need to boycott Sea Shepherd and encourage Rastovich and his far more worthy organization to do the same."

http://www.theinertia.com/environment/confronting-paul-watson-and-sea-shepherd/

The Antarctic biodiversity is protected as a sanctuary against commercial interests and pollution. Wildlife must be protected against violence and be safe from human activities. Australia's native Native Title that allows indigenous species to be cruelly hunted, even if endangered, is an anomaly that needs to be addressed. There's no justification for the mass slaughter of any animals for "scientific research". Killing must be the very last resort. One wrong does not justify another. Japan doesn't need the whale meat. They have great stockpiles of it! It's about promoting their "cultural preferences" and national pride.

Australia dictating to Japan that they can not and must not murder whales for consumption is a bit rich coming from a country that sends 3 million animals on ships for up to 41 days, to countries where there are no laws, standards or codes of practice that offer them any protection during handling and slaughter; a country that insists on massacring thousands of kangaroos every year; a country that bulldozes bushland and kills and maims that bushland's inhabitants at every opportunity; a country that slaughters some 400 million chickens, 32 million sheep and 8 million cattle every year; a country that still has legal caged egg facilities and sow stalls and where mulesing, dehorning, debeaking and hot iron branding are all still legal.

I welcome Japan's decision to leave the IWC, and to then also leave out Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, escorted by the Australian Navy if necessary. The Japanese people who are either opposed to or ambivilent about whale meat consumption can sort out their own government, and those who insist on consuming whales will hopefully be killed off by mercury poisoning