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.”
Our War on Planet Earth has another victim – the Chinese Paddlefish joins the Yangtze River dolphin in extinction.
I’ve been raging for some time about Japan not only flauting the IWC ban on commercial whaling but actively seeking to overturn the moratorium. But the Iceland has not only left the IWC, but is now flagrantly and egregiously whaling like mad and exporting the product to Japan…and they are doing this at a loss!
Those Sea Shepherd dudes are really wasting their time hunting around the Antarctic for the Japanese fleet – they would have a much easier time going after Thor Codbiter in the Atlantic, and maybe get some public interest in the EU and the US around boycotting Icelandic goods. Given Iceland’s current crappy economy, I seriously doubt it would take much of a boycott to get them to stop this one measly company’s depredations on fin and minke whales!
Checkout this disheartening news regarding the scale of the consumption of gorillas in the bushmeat trade. The article is based on a survey of a particular market and the local area from whence the gorillas are killed. In that area things are pretty grim:
“According to interviews and field surveys, we think we may have about 200 gorillas left in the area,” says Mr Fidenci.
“But we estimate that 4% of the population is being killed each month, or 50% in a year. It is a lot.”
They figure beyond this one area, there are ~100K Western Lowland gorillas total in a wild, and they’ll be extinct within the decade given the bushmeat trade.
I don’t know if we’d have done a better job killing them off if we actually planned their extermination.
Sad news about the Great Barrier Reef:
“…the Great Barrier Reef could be “functionally extinct” within decades, with deadly coral bleaching likely to be an annual occurrence by 2030.”
