Weapon Found in Whale Dated From the 1800s 661
LABarr writes "AP and CNN are carrying a story that has forced scientists to re-evaluate the longevity of mammals. A bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt over a century ago. 'Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3½-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old. The bomb lance fragment, lodged in a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time. It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890.' "
It wasn't a bunch of Yahoo's (Score:3, Insightful)
It ain't pretty, but it wasn't going to a bunch of sport hunters for trophies.
Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
Ships injure and kill whales, whalers kill whales, sonar from U.S. Navy submarines kill whales and ruin their hearing. What we're doing is unforgivable.
Is anybody else alarmed about the news that we just killed an old whale?
Yayhoos? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
from TFA (Score:3, Insightful)
The device exploded and probably injured the whale, Bockstoce said.
"It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place," he said. "He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years."
The whale harkens back to far different era. If 130 years old, it would have been born in 1877, the year Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as president, when federal Reconstruction troops withdrew from the South and when Thomas Edison unveiled his newest invention, the phonograph.
The 49-foot male whale died when it was shot with a similar projectile last month, and the older device was found buried beneath its blubber as hunters carved it with a chain saw for harvesting.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
I had part of a pig for breakfast and turkey for lunch, so I'd be a hypocrite if I complained much.
Re:Yay, Humans (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not the first time (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather, it puts the age of the spearhead at well over 100 years. Isn't is possible--perhaps not likely, but possible--that the spearhead went unused for decades after being produced?
This could be very bad (Score:5, Insightful)
What we should really be doing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yay, Humans (Score:2, Insightful)
To imply this has anything to do with survival is absolutely absurd. There are plenty of ways to survive, even in Alaska, without hunting the Earth's whales (or any animal for that matter).
Also,
No, we're not.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:2, Insightful)
I eat all three, so why should I care for Willy the Whale?
Because the cow, pig and chicken you ate was born and raised with the sole purpose of becoming your meal. When these Eskimos start "ranching" whales, they can eat them.
By "caught", you mean "killed", right? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whale wasn't "caught", it was killed. It's really disappointing to think that people still killing rare, intelligent mammals that can live to over 150 years old.
And before people start telling me that whale hunting is part of Inuit tradition, I'd like to point out that TFA mentions that this whale was killed with an mechanically-launched explosive projectile. That's about as traditional as a Lakota shooting a buffalo with an AK-47.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yayhoos? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one disgusted by this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yay, Humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, they're doing it for cultural reasons? Then let them use hand-thrown harpoons to kill it and whale-bone knives to carve it up. You can't have it both ways. I suspect that vast factory ships with explosive harpoon heads and gas-powered chainsaws are not culturally consistent.
I'm sure that killing Mountain Gorillas is culturally consistent for some African tribes, yet no one complains when they are protected.
I agree that maintaining cultural identity is important, but where do we draw the line? To my mind, the law is there to be followed, for everyone. Double standards are racist and backwards. If killing whales is acceptable to our society, then make it legal. If it is unacceptable, make it illegal. The law should not be different because of who your parents were, or what the color of your skin is.
M-
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Intuit whale take is below the species replacement rate, so they aren't putting the bowheads survival in any danger.
Oh, please. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although the general argument goes along the lines that allowing indigenous people to hunt whales makes it harder to put pressure on Asians, I think that this argument is deeply flawed. We have stopped hunting whales with modern weapons because we realize the harm we are doing to the environment. Unless the Japanese and others come to a similar realization, we will not be able to stop them.
One important (even priceless) posession is that of cultural heritage and living tradition. I recognize that many in the world today, having lost a sense of heritage and tradition, fail to appreciate its value, but telling native peoples which traditions they can or cannot do (or even should or should not do) is simple imperialism and tramples on this priceless posession.
The danger of extinction for a species due to traditional practices only comes from two sources. If we recognize this, we can allow people to continue with their heritage and still avoid damage to the environment.
The first is due to technological advancement. This is what lead to the extinction of the Aurochs in Europe (the development of firearms used in hunting wiped out this animal very quickly. Arguably, the rise in higher technology weaponry nearly caused the extinction of many species of whales as well.
The second is due to explosion of demand. This is usually linked to either population increase or more likely more efficient methods of hunting (see the previous paragraph).
Before people suggest that it is still immoral to hunt whales just because they are whales (and absent from sustainability issues), let me say one thing. Every time you eat the standard chicken you get at the supermarket, every time you eat a hamburger, and every time you eat a boiled egg, unless you go out of your way to do otherwise, you are contributing to a system which imprisons animals in ways which are far more unethical.
Personally, I try my best to eat only free range or organically raised meat wherever I can. I go to the length of buying a side of beef once a year from a farmer who raises the cattle locally and humanely. But to suggest that it is unethical for Native Americans to hunt whales while contributing to this gross mistreatment of livestock is not only imperialist, it is also hypocritical.
Fool of myself (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't you post from an account instead of posting as an AC?
I am aware that Inuit were doing the hunting. So what? Inuit have other choices. Fishing for salmon would be a good example.
I do value the Inuit culture, but at a certain point clinging to old ways becomes a Luddite reaction to change. They don't need to hunt whale, and their continuing hunts of whales endanger their future ability to hunt whales.
Mankind needs to move on. Lingering in old ways does not exalt the past, it mocks the past.
Re:Yay, Humans (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't because they are cute, it is because they are rare, unique and irreplaceable. When they are gone, they are gone for good.
M-
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't have it both ways.
Re:Fool of myself (Score:3, Insightful)
This bears repeating. When the whales run out, do you think the Inuit will change their stance on McNuggets or just die out quietly?
Re:Congratulations! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, I don't think you really have a leg to stand on.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
Then imagine the rest of the planet trying to get Americans to abandon this tradition.
Re:Fool of myself (Score:3, Insightful)
"I do value the Inuit culture"
Well, that's great, but you sure don't know anything about them. Their whale hunting endangers nothing except your stupidity.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly am I close-minded about? Or uninformed for that matter, was I wrong about something?
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
I would also guess that the Inuit people couldn't care any less about whether there are enough whales to supply you with Animal Planet specials about whales to watch from your climate controlled living room. They are probably more concerned with the continued existence of whales due to their cultural connections being deeper than regular visits to Pier One's nautical themed knick knack department.
That is the most stupid answer I ever read (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just about saving a species, it's about the whole ecosystem a species fits in that is destroyed because of the actions of forementioned idiots.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like how clear cutting the entire amazon rain forest for lumber and slaying all of the monkeys for exotic dishes would be very bad, but a small group of indiginous peoples occasionally cutting down a tree for building materials and killing monkeys for food is just fine.
It's not cultural relativism, it's plain ol' relativism. Sometimes it is the scale of something that makes it good or bad, and this is one of those cases (as are many cases of ecological preservation).
Now, since the scale of the activity matters, we can't let everyone whale, and we can't let anyone whale without limit. So who do we allow to whale, with limits? Well that's where culture comes in. The Inuit get first dibs. But it's not "okay" because they're doing it, it's "okay" because it's limited and sustainable.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in Juneau, Alaska and we have so many fucking whales up here you can't even walk down the beach without seeing them right here in the waters offshore. That's not exactly a historical perspective, but we're not talking about the last dodo here.
The reason to stop hunting whales isn't that there are few of them, but rather that they probably have legitimate claim at the second most intelligent life from on earth, and more importantly, probably above the threshold of intelligence where we shouldn't hunt them at all. Whales, dolphins, elephants, and primates -- they are all probably above that threshold. As humans, we respect our own first, then other highly intelligent animals (which all happen to be mammals), then other mammals, then other animals, then other forms of life. People differ on where along that spectrum we should stop the killing. Vegans put the line right under all animals, I put it right under intelligent life.
If you really care about whales, then rally against their biggest problem, which is (and for 150 years has been) boat engine noise, which fucks up their ability to talk to one another.
indeed (Score:1, Insightful)
Mankind needs to move on. Lingering in old ways does not exalt the past, it mocks the past.
Inuits do value advanced culture,but at a certain point clinging to new ways becomes a selfish reaction to stability. They don't need Internets to eat, and their continuing industrialization to sustain
Mankind needs to back up. Impassioned pursuit of new ways does not exalt the future, it mocks the future.
Upshot: those who say "I value cultue X, but
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is always brought up, implying that human tradition is so sacrosanct. Subsistence hunting is one thing, but many traditions and heritages are steeped in ridiculous mysticism, bigotry, and pseudoscience.
I mean, I know that I wholeheartedly support movements that seek to stop equality for the sexes, because it's so important to my culture to treat women like shit. Or how about those traditions of imperialism, wanton slaughter of natives, poisoning the environment.
The greater whole of humanity and the environment should always trump any cultural tradition. The real reason small indigenous groups can continue their subsistence hunting is because their impact is negligible.
Talking about culture as if it is some static thing is ridiculous in of itself. Culture changes as science progresses and social revolutions occur. Once the majority of whites realized that colored people weren't a bunch of savage slightly intelligent monkeys, most of them woke up and started treating them with some modicum of dignity. The only "culture" true to humans is that we adapt and change. Everything else is aesthetics (the clothes we wear, art we fashion, things we pray to, dreams we have).
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:3, Insightful)
They are preserving the rituals of the hunt, no different than modern (Catholics/Protestansts/Jews) preserving the rituals of the host/communion/sabbath. Now you can argue that these people should not use modern appliances to cook their bread or modern preserving technology to protect their drink, but I am sure they would explain to you that it is the ritual act itself, not the means, that is important.
Re:By "caught", you mean "killed", right? (Score:4, Insightful)
That tradition is at least 100 years old, since the 1800's weapon was a mechanically-launched explosive projectile as well.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they want to preserve their ancient ways, fine. Hunt whales from small canoes with bone spears. But don't use a chainsaw and claim you're 'preserving your heritage'. Heritage is not a buffet. Either do it as your ancestors did to keep in touch with your past, or man up and move on.
Yeah, and at some point in the past they upgraded from bone to stone hewn tools to metal. At some point in the past they have made improvements to the designs of their boats. Exactly which revision of their "heritage" are you saying they have to stick to for it to satisfy you?
Unless one of their cultural traditions is "technological statism" then I don't see the problem. They didn't "man up and move on" when they invented a better harpoon; it was considered the natural continuation of the same heritage. Because there's a lot more to the underlying cultural heritage than a specific hunting technique.
Or do you think the plains natives should have stopped their traditional bison hunts after they aquired the horse from European settlers? I think in both cases the spiritual and cultural significance of the hunt was not fundamentally erased just because they figured out a new and better way to do it.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone came into your house and opened every water faucet for 23 hours of the day, then suddenly turned them off, and then had the audacity to tell you to conserve water by not drinking any, would you accept that?
Re:That is the most stupid answer I ever read (Score:3, Insightful)
If we want to harvest, we should farm or otherwise artificially support the populations we use.
Whales have giant brains and use language. (Score:1, Insightful)
Protecting some atavistic culture is not an excuse for tolerating whale extinction. Natives everywhere are destroying intelligent species and I see no good reason for taking a laissez-faire stance on the issue whether it's great apes being slaughtered or whales or elephants.
Children aren't allowed to blindly wreak havoc on their environment, and primitive cultures ought to be restricted in similar fashion.
Re:Yay, Humans (Score:4, Insightful)
To put it succinctly, you don't decide what constitutes a faithful continuation of their cultural identity.
Double standards are racist and backwards. If killing whales is acceptable to our society, then make it legal. If it is unacceptable, make it illegal.
It's not as simple as "acceptable" or "unacceptable" to kill in general. There is the issue of sustainability. Whale populations were annihilated by commercial whaling last couple centuries (and this had nothing to do with the Inuit btw!). Large scale whaling is unnacceptable. Small-scale whaling that will not endanger the whole population is acceptable. Allowing everyone to whale is not small scale. We cannot allow everyone to whale. We can allow a small number of people to kill a handful of whales.
So the question then is: If only a small number of people can whale, which people will we allow? That's where the cultural ties to whaling are significant. It's not a double standard -- the standard is small-scale limited whaling, period. But under that standard we by necessity give preference to someone and the Inuit are the obvious choice.
Re:Yayhoos? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, after a significant cool down time, I will admit the when I said the above, it was intended to be inflammatory, and was a knee jerk kind of post. References to Swift's "A Modest Proposal" tend to be pretty outrageous and polarizing. I will, on the other hand, stand by my assertion that the last bear on earth, or indeed the last, or last few members of any species are worth more than any human. The idea that humans have a right to survive, at any cost, and the more extreme, that any human has the right to survive at any cost, seems so incredibly dangerous to me. How much blood staining our collective existence do we have to have? I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but Cows are in no danger of going anywhere as a species, and neither are chickens. But the mass slaughter of an entire genetic line? That is entirely different.
How are we supposed to justify to future generations (should they even exist) that there were once great marine mammals, the largest animals that ever lived, that swam through the seas and sang hauntingly beautiful songs to one another. And that, in that perhaps not so distant future, they no longer exist, because we destroyed their breeding grounds and hunted the last few and ate them. How are we supposed to explain, that there were once other close members of the human family tree living in the forests of Africa. That they could walk upright, some could learn a little sign language, that they used tools, and cared for their young. And that they are no more, because we burned down their forests, and they were hunted to extinction, for meat.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should be forced to grow your own food using 19th century technology. That should have the nice side benefit of reducing your "carbon footprint".
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:3, Insightful)
Jeez, whatever! "Alaskan" Eskimos, "Canadian" Eskimos -- they're all the same anyway, since the distinction didn't exist before Europeans divided up the United States and Canada!
The point, which you thoroughly missed, was that the U.S. (and probably Canadian) government makes exceptions for natives. You can argue over which semantics are politically-correct until you're blue in the face; personally, I don't give a shit!
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:3, Insightful)
Is anybody else alarmed about the news that we just killed an old whale?
It's doubtful that 100+ year old whales are still fertile, so killing them would have absolutely no effect on whale population rates. If we're going to kill whales (and I'm not saying we should), it's certainly preferable to kill only the oldest ones that are not able to increase the population anyway.
Re:Indigenous culture. Time to change? (Score:3, Insightful)
telling native peoples which traditions they can or cannot do (or even should or should not do) is simple imperialism and tramples on this priceless posession
Yes! Like when the evil brits forced native Indians (I mean, Indians in India) to stop burning their wives alive on the pyre of dead husbands! This was a priceless possession of the Indian people and for the brits to say that burning women alive is barbaric, well that's just cultural imperialism.
And now this:
it is still immoral to hunt whales
I've been saying this for so long: there is nothing at all which makes a chicken different than a whale. There is absolutely no reasonable way to differentiate a chicken or a cow from an whale. Some people might say, oh, but whales are highly intelligent and chickens are, well, bird brained, or that whales produce music and live in societies, while cows just fart and chew cuds. Yes, indeed, you sir, parent poster, are truly brilliant, in your rejection of any nuanced look at the differences between species.
Now I'll turn off the sarcasm.
Everything you said is crazy and wrong: "free range" chickens are, legally, just the same as other chickens, with the difference that their coops have windows so the chickens can see the outside world. Yes, that is true. A window from the outside into the coop is the legal distinction between regular and free range chicken. If you think that makes a big moral difference, that makes you an idiot. There are almost no chickens that are allowed to range freely over a big area, almost certainly not the ones you buy. The words "free range" are marketing bullshit, which you have bought, literally. Furthermore, organic foods are lower quality and more expensive than regular foods, and put market pressure on foods which raise the overall price, meaning that the world's poor can't afford the nutrition they need. So, what I'm saying is, by buying free range chicken and organic vegetables, you are first of all wasting your money on marketing bullshit, and second of all making it even more difficult for the world's poor to afford life-saving nutrition. In my opinion, that makes you a supreme asshole, because in my opinion, food should be safe, inexpensive, and available to all humans. It's okay for you to disagree, and think that the world's poor should fuck off and die, but me, I have more compassion than that, for both the humans and the whales -- but not the chickens or the cows.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:5, Insightful)
Straw man much?
Anyway, where is the all-knowing, perfectly-objective judge to make this decision? Some say, people killing whales is causing us to run out of whales, and running out of whales would be bad, and so all people killing whales should stop.
Some other people might say, we've been killing whales with canoes and spears for thousands of years and it's never been a problem. We never ran out of whales. It's the new kids on the sea with what are basically warships and canons (to make war on sea life) that are causing the problems.
How about the folks that are having problems living off the sea stop being so destructive, and stop bothering with the folks who are living with the sea?
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:3, Insightful)
The "modern" tools make it much more likely that if you hit the whale you get it and it counts against your quota. The ones that get away and die 24 hours later would not be counted.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, there's concerns about the usage of monocultures - but it's not entirely monocultures either. We still have a number of different breeds of a number of crops.
We'd already be out of farmland in the USA if it wasn't sustainable.
Re:Longevity of whales (Score:3, Insightful)
What I'm talking about in terms of sustainability is, looking at ecosystems, biomes, and ultimately the whole biosphere, are our current methods of food production sustainable? IE: are we able to produce the food we need without adversely impacting the non-food production elements of the ecosystems within which the food production takes place. Or put another way, do our food production methods help or hinder the other natural systems that support human life?
I'd answer that for the majority of food production in north america, the answer is no because I pretty sure that _most_ industrial production of food (or really industrial production of anything) hasn't even started to think in these terms. It's not that it's impossible to apply modern production techniques towards ecosystem (and ecosphere) sustainability, it's just that up to now no industrialists gave it a thought.