Source: The International Harpoon, No. 3, October 24,1997
The mandate of the Australian National Task Force on Whaling was "to present options the Federal Government might pursue to end commercial whaling world-wide" and to "recommend the strategy most likely to achieve this end." But the Task Force did more than it was asked for. It also took it upon itself to gather and present the arguments against whaling. On reading the report, the Harpoon feels it would have done better to stick to its original mandate, and leave its intellectual talents undiscovered.
It is not that Australia is a vegetarian nation. Australians eat and export more meat than most nations.
It is not that Australians don’t kill wild animals. More than 3 million kangaroos are killed annually, primarily because they are considered a pest. Australia has put a great deal of effort into turning this cull into a commercial enterprise, and has been fighting the US to be allowed to export kangaroo products.
And it is not that Australia is known to be at the cutting edge when it comes to animal welfare — as the Harpoon’s look at the transportation of live sheep to the Middle East, and the inhumane practice of mulesing clearly shows.
Against this background, the National Task Force on Whaling faced an uphill task not to be accused of promoting double standards. Sadly, the end result not only failed to attain the summit; it left us gasping for breath at base camp.
No Leg of Lamb
First, a really big splash. «The growth of the animal rights and animal liberation movements are ... signs of changing ethical values amongst values of peoples,» states the Task Force. The statement concludes a paragraph which argues that our ethics are developing — and always towards new heights. In other words, the most recent ethical
position is always superior to that which preceded it.One must assume that the Task Force is aware of the implications of animals rights ideology. The Harpoon therefore infers from its report that this new, and thus superior, ethical concept is the one that henceforth should govern the relationship between non-human and human animals.
Should Australians now apply the Task Force’s recommendations to all animals (heaven forbid that some animals should be «more equal than others»), there will be no more legs of lamb, no more pets, no more horse-riding and no more killing of pest animals. Is Australia ready for this?
My Case is Special
The answer to this question, of course, is «no», and so in order to avoid this question even arising, the Task Force must argue that the case for whales is special.«The issue of whale intelligence is one that is still debated extensively,» notes the report, but by an egregious abuse of the precautionary principle, it manages to reach a conclusion: «we should accept the evidence suggesting a special degree of intelligence for these mammals until (in the unlikely event) it shows otherwise.»
The only «evidence» cited in support of whale intelligence is of the decidedly «soft» variety:
• It treats whales as if they were all one species, when there are more than 70. Behavioural characteristics of dolphins, for example, which some people interpret as a sign of intelligence, are not demonstrated by minke whales.
• It cites as evidence for whales being special «the nature of the mother/child bond, their social arrangements» and «the fact that they appear to be “capable of enjoying life”.» The same observations which are made of whales could be made of a flock of ewes with their frolicking lambs.
In tackling the topic of whales’ alleged «uniqueness», the Task Force would have done well to heed this statement from a European Council Report on Marine Mammals: «It has also been argued that whales and other cetaceans should not be hunted at all because of their uniqueness. However, all things in nature are unique, and it seems difficult to argue that one species is more unique than another and should therefore receive special treatment.»The Great Ape Project
To demonstrate that the idea of a group of species being «special» and therefore in need of special ethical considerations is not far-fetched, the Task Force points to the Great Ape Project, the aim of which is «to broaden the moral community» and to get the UN to acknowledge «ape rights». «The most important status this proposal confers on the great apes is the right not to be killed,» comments the Task Force.Apparently it is unaware that the person behind this initiative, Australian philosopher Peter Singer, is not of the opinion that some animals are so special that they should be granted the right to life, while others can be killed and eaten. Such a standpoint Singer deems as «speciesism». To Singer, the claim for ape rights is a tactic to break through what he terms «the species barrier» — a first step towards giving all animals «admission to the community of equals».
Singer is not mentioned by the Task Force in connection with the Great Ape Project, but he is quoted elsewhere as saying that whales should be protected from whaling «because we don’t think of them of a resource.» In the interests of intellectual honesty, shouldn’t the Task Force have mentioned that Singer in general does not accept the idea of animals as a resource?
Belief — An Argument in Itself
It seems the Task Force knows its arguments are not too convincing. After extensive arguments to prove that whales are special, it winds up by saying that «at the end of the day, it is less important to define what it is about whales that makes them special as it is to recognise that there exists a widely held belief that whales are special.»Whoops! What did we hear? When a «belief» is established, it becomes an argument in its own right? Whether this belief is based on misconceptions and superstition, or on some kind of reality, does not matter. End of discussion. Yes, that truly is the end of any rational debate.
Hitting Hunters
The report also attempts to get mileage out of the humane killing argument, but without defining the standards which must be met for the killing of animals to be considered humane.After citing research on times to death and the percentage of wounded animals, it concludes that «all forms of whale killing methods involve unacceptable cruelty and barbarity.»
Had the Task Force decided to be comparative by placing whaling in the context of hunting in general, it might have said the same thing — or worse — about almost all hunts. Few hunts can demonstrate better records for killing quality than Norwegian minke whaling and Faroese pilot whaling.
Pork — The Ethical Meat?
If the Task Force were truly interested in a comprehensive discussion of the animal welfare aspects of whaling, it would have compared the welfare implications of taking meat from wild animals with those of producing it on factory farms. As the following statement from the chairman of the Danish governmental Council for Animal Ethics, philosopher Petter Sandøe, indicates, such a debate would indeed have been pertinent:«[I]t is, of course, extremely difficult to compare the whale’s relatively short-lasting but intense pain, with the less intense forms of unpleasantness that occur in animal husbandry. Personally, I have no problem in carrying out such a comparison. My conclusion ... is that I would rather be a minke whale, living in freedom until the final few minutes of pain, than I would be ... a pig or a hen.»
The UK bishop Rt. Rev. John Baker, well known for his involvement in animal issues, agrees with Sandøe. Although he opposes hunting, he believes «the scale of suffering» in intensive food production is so much greater.
Humane — What Befits Man
The Task Force quotes New Zealander David Blackmore, a professor of veterinary medicine, as saying: «none of the methods used for killing whales can be considered humane." But Blackmore’s definition of the term «humane» makes his judgement problematic. In his book Slaughter of Stocks, he defines the term humane as «behaviour towards others that befits man.» Based on this definition, the author concludes: «thus religious slaughter based on strict religious teachings befits the behaviour of those with religious convictions, and must be considered humane by such a society.»We guess that Australia finds the culling of rabbits «befits man», and that this justifies the use of bacterial warfare — which, to put it mildly, is not the least painful killing method around.
Don’t Try It Until You’ve Tried It
The IWC Scientific Committee as well as the IWC itself are satisfied that the new quota calculation model, the Revised Management Procedure, has built into it the necessary safeguards against stock depletion. But the Task Force doesn’t. It «has not been proven in practice,» says the Task Force, as if to say it should therefore not be put into practice.The obvious solution to this Catch 22 situation, of course, is to test it in practice, and the Harpoon would like to inform the Task Force that this is actually happening. Norway has taken the bold step of trying the untried, using the RMP as the basis for the management of its minke whaling.
Principled Use of A Principle
The Task Force cites the precautionary principle as reason enough to reject commercial whaling under IWC control. Yet there are very few human activities which do not represent a risk to nature, and yet even if we know them to be harmful, we do them anyway — like driving cars or building golf courses.Whaling, if conducted sustainably, is an environment-friendly means of meat production, and certainly more so than anything the agricultural sector has so far devised.
The RMP «is the most rigorously tested management procedure for a natural resource yet developed. It sets a standard for the management of all marine and other living resources ... (it) is certainly more conservative than anything that has gone before it,» states the IWC’s Scientific Editor, Greg Donovan. Under the management of the IWC it would also be the best controlled. But when it comes to whales, the best is not good enough. When it comes to other natural resources, next best or rather poor is apparently OK.
The Task Force uses a lot of paper to describe how horrible the state of management is in fisheries, the idea being to make us conclude that if fisheries can’t be managed properly, whaling can’t be either. To be consistent with its whaling policy, therefore, Australia must now take a leading role in engineering the collapse of its commercial fisheries.
To do so would be simple: apply an RMP-type quota calculation model, and an inspection scheme with at least one inspector onboard every boat. Overnight, fishing fleets would collapse because they would cease to be financially viable, and those that survived would be catching so few fish that people would soon lose interest in eating them.
You Can Do It, So Don’t
«Thus, the idea that just because something can be done, it should be done, is rejected universally,» the Task Force insists. And the whalers, being of sound mind, totally agree.We could, of course, all troop out of the IWC and spend the day buried up to our necks in the sand on Monte Carlo beach. But why should we?
In Norway, at least, people’s activities tend to be driven by particular motivations. In the case of whaling, the most obvious of these is to make a living through the earning of money. Earning money is a fairly widespread motivation for getting up each morning, and earning money by producing food from animals is universally accepted.
So what is the Task Force trying to tell us? Until we find out, we will apply the precautionary principle and not bury ourselves up to the neck in sand.
Let Us Define Your Needs
«Is there, then, any necessity for whales to be taken to provide food?» asks the Task Force, and answers, «There is no evidence to say that there is, and much to say that there is not.» Whale meat could, of course, be replaced with horse meat, kangaroo, chicken, beef or pork. All these meats could also be replaced with other meats, or we could all become vegetarian.In the Western world, there is very little of our enormous consumption that could be said to be a necessity, so would Australians like Icelanders to define their needs for them?
The Task Force advises that money spent on whaling should rather be used for «agricultural development». Have they gone crazy? Are they proposing to transform more wilderness into mono-cultures? Or do they want to increase yields by using more fertilizers, chemicals or maybe by introducing genetically manipulated crops or livestock?
Isn’t there a generally accepted view that the agricultural sector must reduce its negative environmental impact by going «green»? If so, yields will fall, and food production will come to rely more on environment-friendly methods ... and what can be more environment-friendly than using wildlife for meat?
Inverted Racism
Given Australia’s sensitivity to criticism of its treatment of its aborigines, it is unsurprising that the Task Force does not launch a direct attack on the IWC’s Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling category. But in its general and sweeping condemnation of the whale killers, it forgets to make exemptions. It states, for example: «All forms of whale killing involve unacceptable cruelty and barbarity.»It takes no great intellect to deduce from this that what is acceptable behaviour by Greenland’s Inuit is not acceptable for people living in developed economies like Norway. This is exactly what Greenland’s KNAPK (the umbrella body for fishermen and hunters) terms «inverted racism».
(That’s your lot, mate! In the interest of readers who wish to finish reading this before Christmas, we must stifle our correspondent in full flow. The unexpurgated, 200-page document on the shortcomings of the Australian Task Force report may be translated into English one day ... or maybe not. Ed.)