News - Spearfishing - whaling

[William]

A bit of a slow news day but here are todays news none the less.

Hey Japan, whales can be studied while still alive, says Australia and New Zealand

Proposed spearfishing ban in the Great Barrier Reef area criticised by fellow Australian scientists

[Dave66]

I'm too polite to say exactly what I think of the people involved, particularly those in the first story.

Dave

[bushwhacker]

while i cant comment on the storys i dont think individuals with spear guns are cutting into the stocks.. its the drag nets from the commercial fishing that are damaging the reef and over fishing the stock

[bigbad-ratman]

i take everything with a grain of salt. good point was already made about the reef.
as for whaling, i could go on for a while. like everything else these days, we should practice whale management. it seems like the oceans can no longer support large pods/herds/whatever of whales, so culling some might be reasonable and responsible. it is said about about the japanese that they do not let any part of their harvested whales go to waste. everything is used supposedly.

[timfee]

it seems like the oceans can no longer support large pods/herds/whatever of whales

Why? I've never heard of any problems caused by too many whales.

[William]

The problem is overfishing not the whales. Fish stocks could be replenished rather fast if we just limit fishing for a few years. Just see how fast fish stock rebounded during the two world wars.