Japan’s new whaling ‘mother ship’ being built to travel as far as Antarctica

Yes but before I say more: what year was it?

I can’t remember and I left the experts to talk to each other, way outside my area of expertise.

As an expert, I very much doubt they could tell. The further back in time it was, the more I doubt they could.

Nagasaki. Taken right now.

Didn’t order it.

Seems to be a big chain sushi restaurant so probably available nation wide.

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Well, things have moved on in Japan since I was there - but that was 16 years ago. The international convention on whaling allows a certain small whale kill per annum, for “scientific purposes”. Ho, ho, ho.

IIRC initially there was a moratorium covering all whale species, but with the expiry of the moratorium, bans or management are limited to species expressly listed.

I saw a vending machine in Tokyo that sold puppies !

kangaroo meat isn’t as nice.
for effort to skin it, not a lot of meat on them.
only good enough for dogs really. Not much demand.

Roos are seen as more of a pest - eating grass, than what you can get from the carcass.
There isn’t many shooters who make a dollar out of it.

Send the Hunters down to Tassie to clean up the wild Deer problem.

what do we do with all the farmland if not farm pigs/cattle/sheep - let roos run around on it??? nah those farmers would be cropping instead. pushing roos further away. And making them more of a pest and probably hunted more.

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Overpopulation of humpback whales could lead to disastrous decline

ByKay Vandette

Earth.com staff writer

The recovery of eastern Australian humpback whales should be a conservation success story after the whales in that area were hunted to near extinction by the 1960s due to commercial whaling.

But now, a new study has found that although the population of humpbacks in the Australian Southern Ocean has almost completely recovered, their numbers are increasing at such a rapid rate that soon there won’t be enough food to sustain the whales.

Competition for food and mates could cause a disastrous plummet in numbers, according to researchers from the University of Queensland Gatton who conducted the study which was published in the journal Population Ecology.

The researchers reviewed structured surveys of the humpback whales that were first conducted in the 1980s.

The surveys are helpful in that they show a complete picture of population recovery through the years. By 2015, the humpback whales recovered and there were a little over 24,500 whales in total.

This recovery in numbers was due to an increase in conservation efforts and the Endangered Species Act.

With the population continuing to grow at such a rapid rate, the researchers say that overpopulation will lead to competition for resources and population declines between 2021 and 2026.

“Whale numbers are still steaming ahead at a tremendous rate — the population is virtually doubling every seven years,” said Michael Noad, the leader of the study. “They’re either going to go up to a fairly high number and level off, about 40,000 or 50,000, or they could peak and then crash.”

If overpopulation were to occur, the researchers say that Australia would see more whale beachings and more whale carcasses at sea.

Overpopulation of humpback whales could lead to disastrous decline • Earth.com

We have Definity seen more whale beachings in TAS.
maybe letting the Japanese hunt a few may not be a bad thing as long as there was a quota

And only the breeds that are in abundance.

Or into the high country to cull the feral horses and wild dogs. Or way outback to try to control the enormous cat problem they have out there.

The whole deer thing drives me nuts. We have an enormously damaging feral species that’s experiencing a massive population boom, and these are species that people actually want to hunt, and what do we do? We put fkg bag limits, closed seasons etc on them so that their numbers won’t be too badly impacted. Fkg crazy.

The whole thing is a bit of an object lesson in the hazards of market solutions to environmental problems. You identify a need (getting rid of the deer) and then you identify a way to make money out of it (a deer hunting industry). But then once the industry gets going, the people making money out of it want to continue doing so forever, so the original goal gets forgotten, lobbyists etc get involved, and policy switches towards keeping the industry alive regardless of the ecological purpose it was originally intended to fulfil. It’s hard to convince people to hunt their own livelihoods out of existence, even when that’s the environmentally necessary thing to do.

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Nah Govt needs to put a bounty on them like they did the Tassie Tiger.
maybe for a 2 year period then review.

Quite a few people hunt them, but the season isn’t very long. In the high country farmers can shoot them from the driveway.

As far as cats are concerned, its up to councils to make sure cats, like Dogs are registered owners need to be desexed and pay a annual fee.

Dealing with feral cat issue, is quite difficult.

Kangaroo fillet is superb, do not overcook. Steak is OK, many uses in cooking, including smoked.
Kangaroo leather has properties that make it number one in shoes, suppleness, water resistant , long lasting etc. They once were the choice for track athletes. The high end European fashion industry uses it.

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Yeah, the govt could easily choose to get rid of the deer either by a bounty system or by just flat-out commissioning shooters, but the issue is that the hunting lobby would go nuts. There’s a fundamental contradiction in goals between the hunters and the hunting industry, who want deer to hunt forever, and the ecologists, who want all the deer to go away asap.

Mind you, they’ve tried a bounty system with foxes several times, and while it’s probably helped keep a cap on fox numbers, there’s been no appreciable progress towards extermination. Foxes are sneakier and better at hiding than deer though.

Ain’t that the truth.

It’s good that so many councils are starting to have cat curfews or ban outdoor cats, but the genie is well and truly out of the bottle and there’ no way we’re ever going to get rid of the ferals sadly.

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I dont think they would.
The deer have spread into quite a lot of northern Tas, and created a few car accidents crossing roads and now not just in the country but fringes of suburbia.
having a wallaby or a possum or echnida in surburbia is kind of cute, but a deer is dangerous.

In 2016 it was estimated there were 25,000 feral deer in Tasmania and that numbers could increase by 40 per cent in just ten years and exceed one million by mid-century if there is no active management,” Mr Cox said.

“In just four years it looks like the estimated number of feral deer in Tasmania has more than doubled.

Yeah, the buggers are everywhere at the moment. A couple of wet summers with lots of green pick and the numbers have just skyrocketed.

I’m not really up with what’s going on in Tassie, so maybe public opinions are different there. But some relatively minor culling of deer in the Yarra Ranges near where i live was pretty controversial to say the least. And the whole national park is still lousy with the things.

Its at the stage that even if hunters could hunt all year, they wouldn’t put a dent in the numbers.
But they are still restricted, and there’s no market for them.
Deer highlands, campbelltown, Trevallyn, prospect, East coast, Ben Lomond, urban areas near Hobart

This is a good article
Shot and left to rot: Tasmania grapples with deer dilemma as invasive pest numbers soar | Invasive species | The Guardian

Didnt realise restrictions on selling the meat. Change that law and then might help a little

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As to restrictions on deer meat, NZ used to have restrictions on trout.
It was only accessible for purchase around the fishing lodges at premium prices in their restaurants.
Imports of fresh and chilled trout were banned. It had nothing to do with animal or human health or the environment.
It was all about protection of the commercial interests of the fishing lodges , with other fish for human consumption in abundance ( with a decent export industry)
For years, dining out with Kiwi visitors, when they nearly always ordered trout from the menu, I thought it was a cultural thing.

IIRC deer put Yellowstone National Park in a dire state after all their natural predators had been killed by man.

Yanks reintroduced wolves in the mid 90’s and after they kept the deer population in check, the park ecosystem underwent a drastic revitalisation.

Not saying we should introduce wolves (Simpsons style), but I had no idea how horrible unchecked deer were for the environment until I saw that.

I fcking hate wasting good meat too.

Bring back the Thylacine?

You can get tasty possum salami and other preserved meats from possum from those islands in Bass Strait.
On mainland Australia, commercialisation of possums for meat or wool is banned. NZ possum wool clothing is imported and is OK, as possums in NZ are an introduced invasive species.