Needlenose

Whale blubber sashimi is a dish best served cold

About fucking time somebody took Japan to court over their nasty commercial whaling.  Kevin Rudd rocks!!!

It seems like only yesterday when politicians were shouting Drill, Baby Drill to a growing chorus of SUV-drivin’ whiners.  Frankly, given the history of oil spills, I couldn’t help but wonder how politics in the U.S. could have shifted so sharply in my lifetime from a moratorium on new drilling to supposed Totalitarian Liberals like Obama and a ‘moderate’ Repug like Schwarzenegger pushing for renewed coastal drilling.

What a difference a multi-million gallon oil spill off wetlands, fisheries and resort beaches makes.  Now, thanks to BP’s fuckup and the failure of an oil rig that was supposedly spill-proof, it looks like additional coastal drilling may be off the table…at least while this is still in the news.

It really comes down to this – I don’t believe Americans can really remember stuff that happened before the current news cycle.  Seriously, just watch – somebody will discover some politician or celebrity’s reproductive organ lodged somewhere it isn’t supposed to be, the oil spill will fade from memory (along with countless threatened and endangered spills in the Gulf of Mexico), and Palin et. al. will be out screaming Drill, Baby Drill with renewed vigor.

It’s like all that talk a few years ago about how nuclear power was gaining new support. Obama even included building a few new of the unstable light water reactors in his energy plan.  What the hell will it take to take that option off the table, another Three Mile Island or a Chernobyl (history of those nuclear power accidents, in case you too have amnesia)?

Whale blubber sashimi is a dish best served cold

It’s being spun as a compromise, but the latest effort to ‘cap’ the annual whale kill on the part of the rogue whaling nations of Japan, Norway and Iceland really comes down to providing an international framework to legitimize the commercial blubber sashimi trade.

I’m with Patrick R. Ramage, global whale program director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare:

“From our point of view, it’s a whaler’s wish list.  It would overturn the ’86 moratorium, eviscerate the South Ocean Whale Sanctuary, subordinate science and I.W.C. precedent to reward countries that have refused to comply by allocating quotas to those three countries.”

Amen, brother, say “No!” to appeasement as did Australia , Tokelau, New Zealand, Fiji and many other Pacific nations.

If you were pinning your hopes (as I was) on the current CITES meeting for the UN to protect the last of the blue fin tuna population, then I’m sorry to tell you the tuna are SOL.  In spite of incontrovertible scientific evidence that the fish population had collapsed and needed drastic protection, the CITES members decided to keep killing the fish because a ban would ‘devastate fishing economies.‘

I wonder what they think is going to happen when the blue fin tuna is practically extinct (in commercial terms) in a few years?   Somebody else’s problem, I guess.

Well kudos to the plucky Prince of Monaco.  I’ve come to the opinion that the republican form of government has become thoroughly compromised and is way overrated.

Not surprising, but irritating nonetheless – heading of CITES at the pass, Japan says they’ll buy and eat the last damn bluefin tuna regardless of scientific research and world opinion.

Where is the Kevin Rudd of the Mediterranean?  The Bob Barker of Bluefin?

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tells the Japanese to stop whaling by November 2010.   Good on ya, mate!  Why can’t our Dem leaders grow a pair?

Truth is stranger than fiction! None other than Bob Barker of 70s and 80s TV game show fame has come to the rescue of Sea Shepherd, through a $5 million gift to go buy a boat that won’t get crushed in the ice in Antarctic waters.  And believe it or not, the new ship, the ‘Bob Barker’ has already proven it’s worth – it came to the rescue of several crew members of their little ‘attack’ vessel the Ady Gil after said boat was deliberately rammed by a whaler.

While I like and support Sea Shepherd’s work, I’m no big fan of their founder, Paul Watson.  Case in point, he’s equating the potential end of Japanese Antarctic whaling with the end of commercial whaling:

“Whaling was shut down today,” Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said via satellite phone from aboard a nearby ship. “There’s no whaling now and hopefully no whaling after this.”

Well…what about Iceland?  What about Norway?  What about so-called Russian & U.S. “traditional” indigenous whaling?  I think his organization would have a much easier time putting pressure on those countries and shutting down whaling faster than playing faux pirate in the Antarctic waters with the Japanese cast as the only villains.

Anyway, hopefully Bob Barker’s courageous donations will be a clarion call that will inspire other game show hosts to donate additional money and tools to pro-environmental groups…how about a 16 inch/50 caliber Mark 7 naval gun for the new ship?

Did you really think an organization like International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), run as it is by countries with a vested interest in fishing for tuna would listen to warnings about the collapsing fishery and impending extinction of the fish and take real action and suspend fishing for a few years until the fish population recovers?  Seriously?

It’s like expecting the International Whaling Commission which includes only whaling countries, several of whom subsidize their <strike>commercial</strike> “research” whaling activities to seriously ban whaling – it’s not going to happen.

Why do we carry on these charades?  Well in the absence of a serious transnational authority over oceanic resources, the only way to get these countries to sit at the table is if they are scared that by not participating, somebody else will destroy the last of the ‘stocks’ first.  I guess it’s sort of a tragedy of the commons situation where all the parties sit around regularly and jawbone about the looming tragedy, then just do whatever the fuck they want to during the rest of the year.

At this point the tuna’s only hope appears to be tiny Monaco’s attempt to get CITES to declare the tuna endangered, thus triggering far stricter action on the part of CITES members:

Environmental groups are now backing a call from Monaco for the issue of bluefin tuna to be taken before a March meeting of CITES, an international body that sets rules against illegal wildlife trade, with the aim of declaring the fish endangered and putting a ban on catching it.

In related news, Pacific whales may have some hope not from positive political action but rather from Japanese government funding cuts that may cut the subsidies that keep their ‘research’ vessels in business.

*Update* Check out the Sea Shepherd’s new speedster

*Update 11/17/09* Found this funny South Park parody of Whale Wars – I think that kid may be onto something

*Update 11/18/09* Speaking of overfishing, prepare to say goodbye to this skate

This story is great on so many levels – a bear in Kashmir kills two militants in a cave.  First it’s funny – the two bear-chow boys were armed with AK-47s, and if an unarmed bear can take out some supposed ‘militants’ with automatic weapons…

Second, it’s encouraging from the perspective that apparently all the crazy conflict in Kashmir has resulted in an increase in wildlife in the region as poaching has decreased.  I guess if the bear could only figure out how to use those AK-47s he could probably wipe out the insurgency by himself while improving the odds for local wildlife!

Scientists are beginning to suspect that world reptile populations could be as threatened as those of amphibians - uncertainty due to lack of tracking.  Of course it is bad, with all orders disappearing across the board.  And the news comes with the inevitable tag line:

“…extinction rates of animal species are much higher than had been predicted only a few years ago.”