Devils advocate or just plain ignorant?

[WhiteKiboko]

as for the canadian hunt, as long as it's well managed, closely watched and most importantly - sustainable, i say let them do their thing...

the anti seal hunt mob is the posterchild for 'save an animal because it's cute' category...

 

[OB]

Humans find it hard to survive on greens alone. To wish to eat an animal, you will need to kill the animal, or alternatively amputate it, reducing its q.o.l. greatly in the process.

I am willing to kill or have killed an animal for food, provided it's done swiftly and with limited stress or pain, it had a good life up to the moment of death (anthropomorphism, I know, but we're not that physiologically distinct for the most part) and I don't take its entire habitat with it, that's just a basic premise. I take up a substantial amount of habitat by existing in a developed, mechanised society. As people we will have a great impact on our surroundings, BUT DOES IT REALLY HAVE TO BE SO MUCH MORE THAN IS COMPLETELY NECESSARY????

The return of all caps Olaf "500,000,000 people looks like historically sufficient for one planet" Blaauw

 

[Tintenfisch]

For me, the size of the animal is also important. If you kill one steer, many people can be fed, several times, from that one death. A salad with prawns, or baby octopus, involves the taking of many lives (some of which may be left on the plate and thrown away!!), and probably won't even fill one person, once! This is one of my main reasons for avoiding seafood. (Edit: Many of) the animals are just too small.

 

[Cairnos]

For me, the size of the animal is also important. If you kill one steer, many people can be fed, several times, from that one death. A salad with prawns, or baby octopus, involves the taking of many lives (some of which may be left on the plate and thrown away!!), and probably won't even fill one person, once! This is one of my main reasons for avoiding seafood. The animals are just too small.

Some of them aren't that small, for example toothfish, black spotted groper and some of the tunas. Of course harvesting larger animals tends to be linked to sustainability concerns.

With all food animals there is also the factor of how efficiently it is used i.e we can feed more people on fewer animals if we use as much of each one as possible.

One interesting point I've noticed people have different views on is whether intentionally raising an animal for slaughter or taking one that has lived it's lilfe in the wild (assuming no sustainability concerns) is more 'right'. I have heard arguments both ways.

 

[Tintenfisch]

Some of them aren't that small, for example toothfish, black spotted groper and some of the tunas.

True. But with fish like tuna, there are many other issues, such as whether we should be removing a top predator from the ecosystem, and I believe the heavy metal levels in tuna flesh (concentrated up the trophic levels) are now so high that they are not actually recommended for regular human consumption any more?

 

[Steve O'Shea]

One of the postgrads here, Ann Bui, did a survey of heavy metal contamination in snapper, kahawai and school shark last year. She found excessive levels of cadmium, copper, zinc and lead in BOTH FISH FILLET AND LIVER tissues from fish collected in Manukau Harbour and Hobson Bay, Waitemata Harbour - two very popular fishing spots.

Levels of these three metals exceeded NZ/Australia standards for these heavy metals. The tragic thing is that the smallest fish (snapper ~ 20cm length) exceeded these levels EVEN IN FILLETS!

I'm in the process of editing Ann's report so that we can get it out in the public domain. You have to be extremely careful with what you eat!

 

[WhiteKiboko]

Tis a shame.... tilefish is ubertasty.... but i am conscious of what i'm getting into in that case (old fish but on the plus side it's so far in between samplings)

Where do those two popular fishing spots sit in relation to estuaries/ heavy industrial sites?

 

[OB]

So, you're telling me I should have my junmai dai ginjyo without the buri toro sashimi? Anyway, heavy metals are a main concern when exposed via inhalation, mostly in heavily industrialised areas and places with high natural background, such as Fuchu province in Japan. Lead is most dangerous of the lot, leading amongst others to significant morbity in pregnancies. Ingestion is less dangerous, as only 10% of the ingested metal actually makes it into the bloodstream, but one should take into account that the half-life of lead in healthy individuals is 25 to 40 days.

10 half-lives for complete eradication, so sushi once a year only?

No, it's chronic exposure at high levels that is the culprit with lead, cadmium, and the likes.

To round things up, no one wants excess of naturally occurring levels of heavy metal in their system, bar our friends Dethklok, but as with every hazard, exposure (external and relevant internal!) defines risk, not the hazard itself.

If I therefore hear a fisherman explain he doesn't trawl an entire seamount, merely its slopes (summit accounting for 10%, that leaves 90% to destroy) the hazard times exposure takes on an extremely nasty risk quality in my book...

 

[Toren]

"The hunt is a humane operation closely monitored by Ottawa, clubbing seals is the best way of killing them, and it supports a traditional way of life, they say."

What does tradition have to do with anything even remotely relevant? Ridiculous.

"Hearn said the hunt helped keep numbers under control and protect fish stocks. "

I have a better way to protect fish stocks. Stop fishing them!

.... and an update on the Talley tyrade.

As an aside, more bad news for seals, this time in Canada.

Sometimes I do feel like becoming a vegetarian!

 

[Michael Blue]

Ugh. Wow...

 

[cthulhu77]

I agree. Toren, you have the right of it...I stopped eating fish two years ago, yeah, I know...p*ssing in the wind, but hey, at least I feel better about it, and I get to rant and rave in restaraunts !

 

[Bob the kracken]

i think that we should be able to hunt them, but we shouldn't go out and slaughter them and ahiallate the spiecies. there should be a limit like they put on deer or fish.

 

[sorseress]

There is not one legimate reason to hunt seals.

 

[cthulhu77]

Don't even get me going...I'm already in dutch.

 

[myopsida]

For me, the size of the animal is also important. If you kill one steer, many people can be fed, several times, from that one death. A salad with prawns, or baby octopus, involves the taking of many lives (some of which may be left on the plate and thrown away!!), and probably won't even fill one person, once! This is one of my main reasons for avoiding seafood. (Edit: Many of) the animals are just too small.

How can you justify eating one steer if it has been raised on fish meal made from many thousands of prawns/krill/fish? The best conservation is to eat the lower trophic levels. The argument for eating large individual animals to satisfy several people in one meal also is wrong - we should eat the small fish, leaving the breeding stock.