According to "Japan ends whaling season short of quota", anti-whaling activists forced Japan to end its annual whale hunt this year with less then one third of the targeted number of Minke whales. Whilst the Sea Shepherd activists see this result as "a very successful campaign" (2012, ¶ 8) against what they believe "is a cover for [banned] commercial whaling" (¶ 4), Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research sees their efforts as criminal sabotage. The article also reports that the Australian government is challenging Japan's whaling in the International Court of Justice, arguing that it violates international law.
As you might already have guessed from my introduction, what first interested me in this article is the apparently inconsistent standards that some human beings apply to how we treat other animals: it's OK to eat pigs, but not dogs; we can enjoy kangaroo steaks, but not elephant steak; it's OK to savour tasty lambs brains, but people get upset if it's monkey brains on the menu. And in the case here, some people get very upset about killing and eating whales, whilst they seem rather less upset about all the beef that is gobbled down every day. It the animals in question were on the brink of extinction, the concern might be understandable, but Minke whales don't seem to be in any danger of disappearing. So, what's wrong with the Japanese catching some to eat?
But I'm also not sure that the Japanese come off entirely spotless (apart from all the whale blood on their hands): it's dishonest to pretend to be catching so many whales for research when there are good grounds for thinking it's a ploy to allow the whale meat to be sold and eaten. It would be better, more honest, to admit the truth when they kill whales for profit because some people lust for the taste or whatever. I don't think that lying is a good thing.
I guess that this concern for animals is fairly modern: my 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique (one of my favourite books to browse through) includes a recipe for elephant trunk soup which I'm pretty sure is not in later editions. Since butchers in Australia tended not to stock elephant trunks even a couple of decades ago, that was one of the recipes I never got around to trying. Kangaroo, on the other hand, is now very widely sold by Australian butchers. Our national symbol has a pleasant taste, a bit stronger than beef, than which it is supposed to be healthier. I usually have a kangaroo steak or two on my visits back.
So, apart from the threat of extinction, is there any good reason why it should be illegal to eat some animals. such as Minke whales? Indeed, is even the threat of extinction a good enough reason to ban the turning of animals into tasty snacks?
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References
Prosper, M. (1961). Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine, and Cookery (C. Turgeon and N. Froud, eds., trans.). New York: Crown.
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