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Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

bbc.com

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Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#11

Post by bryan0 »

mcculley wrote: post #7
Grustaf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, every year in the US 121 million pigs are slaughtered, and they obviously live under much worse conditions. The Faroe Islands have 50000 inhabitants, so even if they did this every year it wouldn't really be very significant. It looks graphical, but if they eat them, which I understand that they do, what is really the problem?

This would make some sense if we were farming dolphin. Pigs are not endangered.

Neither are Atlantic white-sided dolphins[0]. It does seem weird to me that people would get upset over this but not our own slaughter of hundreds of millions of animals.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_white-sided_dolphin

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#12

Post by c54 »

Funny how 'traditional' here is implied to have a positive connotation, as if to say: Well, here are some people who did something we don't like, but it's maybe justified since it was tradition.

Tradition need not mean good, this one is clearly barbaric by modern standards.

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#13

Post by docdeek »

mcculley wrote: post #7
Grustaf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, every year in the US 121 million pigs are slaughtered, and they obviously live under much worse conditions. The Faroe Islands have 50000 inhabitants, so even if they did this every year it wouldn't really be very significant. It looks graphical, but if they eat them, which I understand that they do, what is really the problem?

This would make some sense if we were farming dolphin. Pigs are not endangered.

Are the white-sided dolphins that are at issue here endangered? Wikipedia says they aren’t, ranked as ‘Of Least Concern’ on the conservation scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_white-sided_dolphin

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#14

Post by ftyers »

schleck8 wrote: post #8

Sounds like quite the barbarian 'culture'. Killing animals for food is one thing, doing it as a hobby for fun is incredibly weird. You can't even eat them i think, so they died for absolutely no reason.

> The carcases were pulled ashore and distributed to locals for consumption.

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#16

Post by Loughla »

schleck8 wrote: post #8

Sounds like quite the barbarian 'culture'. Killing animals for food is one thing, doing it as a hobby for fun is incredibly weird. You can't even eat them i think, so they died for absolutely no reason.

>Sounds like quite the barbarian 'culture'.

wat

You do understand that > Killing animals [. . .] as a hobby [. . .]

Is something that happens in most places, right? Hunting exists. It's multi-billion dollar industry.

What about hunting defines a culture as barbaric? If it's done within appropriate and ethical legislative or regulatory contexts, and not to endangered or threatened species, what does it matter in defining whether a culture is barbaric or not?

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#17

Post by lb1lf »

schleck8 wrote: post #8

Sounds like quite the barbarian 'culture'. Killing animals for food is one thing, doing it as a hobby for fun is incredibly weird. You can't even eat them i think, so they died for absolutely no reason.

-These animals ARE killed for food.

From the BBC story:

"The carcases were pulled ashore and distributed to locals for consumption."

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#18

Post by jnwatson »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #5
blunte wrote: post #4

The "part of our cultural heritage" excuse is not a positive argument, as many cultures have some pretty horrible practices in their heritage. In fact, some cultures were successful colonists. Should they be allowed to capture the Faroe islands and enslave the locals under the guise of "cultural heritage"? Times change, and human society on the whole must change. Cultures that refuse to change can and sometimes shoul…

I agree with the argument you're making, but not with your colonist example. Dolphins, after all, are animals, not people. "Cultural heritage" argument is in a league of its own when it comes to harming humans.

We do indeed make exceptions for humans. We frequently ignore issues like child marriage. Widespread pederasty was ignored in Afghanistan for respect of their culture.

Even in the “Western” world the lack of statutory rape law in France (just changed this year) was mostly ignored because it was just considered part of French culture.

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#19

Post by schleck8 »

ftyers wrote: post #14
schleck8 wrote: post #8

Sounds like quite the barbarian 'culture'. Killing animals for food is one thing, doing it as a hobby for fun is incredibly weird. You can't even eat them i think, so they died for absolutely no reason.

> The carcases were pulled ashore and distributed to locals for consumption.

> Dolphin meat is high in mercury, and may pose a health danger to humans when consumed.

You can only eat it in small quantities

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mammals_as_food

Re: Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

#20

Post by falcolas »

ftyers wrote: post #14
schleck8 wrote: post #8

Sounds like quite the barbarian 'culture'. Killing animals for food is one thing, doing it as a hobby for fun is incredibly weird. You can't even eat them i think, so they died for absolutely no reason.

> The carcases were pulled ashore and distributed to locals for consumption.

Per some of the reports - they got too much. They got more than they can store for consumption. Even the town leaders were apologizing for slaughtering too many.
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