Will Killing Whales Save the World's Fisheries?

[annes]

Here’s they claim on these news. Killing the whales will help bring up the fish population. They call it "ecosystem managing."
What do you think ?

Killing Whales Save the World's Fisheries

[Wild-Woman]

The fish population on this planet is dwindling because of us. Climate change, unsustainable fishing practises, pollution, feeding this over-populated planet. Nothing to do with the whales who have lived in harmony with the seas ecosystem for millions of years.

[The Woodman]

As I was waiting for the link to open I wondered if the "management system" was from Japan.

Low and behold it was. What staggers me is the fact that science can be poles apart. East versus west opinion but in the end I don't think that Japans logic is sound. All they want to do is kill and process more whales. Period.

[Dogghound]

The simple answer to the question is no. I think wild woman pretty much hit the main cause of fish decline and thats us. Sometime soon before its to late (I hope) people are going to realise that and ecosystem is a symbiotic system without one aspect the rest wont work.

[Ukwildlifeo]

There is a similar argument for seals to be culled here. There is of course no scientific evidence for either of these

[zan]

I don't know about the evidence for the UK, but in the Grand Banks they believe that the cod may not be recovering because of the predation from seals. After the cod stocks crashed, it is believed that they may now be at such a low level that the seals are preventing them from recovering. So we caused the crash, but now it's happened it's the mammals that *might* be keeping them down.

The problem with a lot of these theories is that ecosystems are so complex it's virtually impossible to say what the effects of removing \ adding another species will be until it's done. I'd be very wary of this kind of approach, particularly given the bias towards whaling in Japan anyway.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by annes

Here’s they claim on these news. Killing the whales will help bring up the fish population. They call it "ecosystem managing."
What do you think ?

Killing Whales Save the World's Fisheries

no - to be blunt this line of argument is a vast quantity of aged shoe makers - put forward by those who wish to kill whales for comercial reasons.

a number of species of whale that are hunted are filter feeders and dont eat fish at all - and those that do are not sufficiently numerous to impact on fish stocks.

the reasons fish are in decline is a) polution which is the responsiblity of every industrialised nation , and b) over fishing again there are many culprits but the factory ships from japan and russia are ammong the worst.

[svenrufus]

Could I recommend a book called 'The End of the Line' by Charles Clover - all about overfishing - how, why and who. Funnily enough apart from Spain, the Japanese are by far the worst culprits for overfishing and consequently the reduction fish stocks. Shocking read, and not a simple story of east is different from west - we are all at it and to one degree or another all as bad as each other.

So, overfish the fish, and then overfish the whales to 'give them a chance' - there is a terrible, perverse logic to it, but it is fundamentally perverse in the end.

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by svenrufus

Could I recommend a book called 'The End of the Line' by Charles Clover - all about overfishing - how, why and who. Funnily enough apart from Spain, the Japanese are by far the worst culprits for overfishing and consequently the reduction fish stocks. Shocking read, and not a simple story of east is different from west - we are all at it and to one degree or another all as bad as each other.

So, overfish the fish, and then overfish the whales to 'give them a chance' - there is a terrible, perverse logic to it, but it is fundamentally perverse in the end.

Maybe we need a cull of Japanese fishermen! More effective than culling whales.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by zan

I don't know about the evidence for the UK, but in the Grand Banks they believe that the cod may not be recovering because of the predation from seals.

ISTRC that there was also a problem with the whole ecosystem of the seabed changing by the absence of the bottom feeding cod. The cod kept the levels of crabs down. Without the cod, crab populations have exploded and are eating the eggs laid by what few cod are remaining.

Jim