Anti-Whaling Group Using Drones To Find Whalers 377
FatLittleMonkey writes "Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd is using aerial drones to find and track factory ships used by Japanese whalers. The group claims the tactic shortened the Japanese whaling season last year by a month, saving 200 whales, and this year they've spotted the factory ship even earlier."
Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:2)
For the country that usually is known for its robots, that sure seems to be an embarrassment.
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually much of the whaling has been happening illegally in australian waters, and believe me, firearms would absolutely be the last straw in our governments very thin patience with these poachers.
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually much of the whaling has been happening illegally in australian waters, and believe me, firearms would absolutely be the last straw in our governments very thin patience with these poachers.
Mod Parent up.
Public Opinion has in the region is around 90-10 against the Whalers, especially after the Sea Shepherd Stunt.
The Australian Navy has been requested to intervene on both sides in the last few years. Refused to take sides at this point.
General feeling is the Activists could prob take it a few steps further iwthout getting into trouble whereas the Japanese have pushed to the limits already.
Sonic weapons on both sides will be the next escalation step. However as this article is about communication and intelligence is vital.
If they know where the mother ship is they know how far out the whaling ships can reach and therefore act to drive the whales out of the way.
The danger comes where they know the Whaling ship has spotted a whale and is actively hunting it.
They will attempt to get in the line of sight of the harpoon, acid/gumsplash the harpoon mechanism, anything to stop the shot.
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Well... In that case, lets all hope they decide to resort to firearms.
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Informative)
The waters they are fishing in are waters claimed by Australia but not recognised by Japan - Australia claim control over most of the southern ocean, well outside of the normal economic zone limits, and thus Japan has a valid reason to not recognise Australian control. Japan also doesn't recognise the economic area Australia claim off the coast of Antarctica, so once again the claim is in dispute.
It's hardly as black and white as you put it - and I support the abolition of whaling.
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't there an international standard of a 200 mile influence from a nation's shores, subject to negotiation of overlapping districts?
Regardless, the Japanese claims of "scientific research" seem like a flimsy excuse for the slaughter. Whales are intelligent, emotional creatures like dolphins. They communicate over vast distances. Just because they're not human doesn't mean we should be slaughtering them any more than we should primates.
They're too far up the evolutionary chain to be treated as common food animals.
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The 200 mile limit is the exclusive economic zone I referred to in my post, and if you look at Australias, it's nowhere near as big as you think it us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone#Australia [wikipedia.org]
200 miles isn't all that much in real terms.
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Ever own a cat. They have brains the size of a walnut yet each has their own personality. Mine would pout if they wanted to be close and I pushed them away. They'd play tricks on me. They knew when I didn't feel well, their behavior changed.
It used to be that people owning slaves in the South thought of them as farm animals as well, devoid of intelligent thought. If you have it drilled into you that other creatures are nothing more than automatons, then you will treat them like that regardless.
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:4, Informative)
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Don't the anti-whalers have the right to fly drones around in international waters?
If the whalers start shooting them, what is to stop the anti-whalers from sinking the whaling ships?
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Sinking a ship would put all mariners up in arms, no matter their nationality, politics, religion, or anything at all. There are some things you just don't do, unless you're ready to declare open war. Do the whaler-chasers have a nation ready to back them up with a real navy? I don't think so . . .
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Oh come now, no ships would ever be sunk because of a feud between a nation state and environmentalists.
Err, scrap that [wikipedia.org].
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(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:
(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;
(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;
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Tactically, a UAV wouldn't do the whalers much (if any) good as long as Sea Shepherd has one too. Sea Shepherd's entire goal is to find and then tailgate the factory ship; once they've done that then it doesn't matter if the whalers know where they are.
Now, if the whalers shot down Sea Shepherd's UAV (before it found the factory ship) then they could use their own to track Sea Shepherd and keep the factory ship away from their position, without "wasting" a harpoon ship like they've been doing.
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Pragmatically speaking you'll need automatic weapons to take down a drone on the high seas, and those NFA firearms aren't cheap. Not to mention you'll need to sail out of US, intercept the drones, and then sail back to the US again.
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Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be willing to bet that the minute the Japanese whaling fleet took a missile shot at the drone, the Australian navy would be all over them. The Japanese don't need that kind of bad PR at this point in time.
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Informative)
That doesn't really matter. Drones have the extremely desirable property of having a tiny signature in pretty much any field.
Tiny radar signature ...
Tiny heat signature
Tiny visual signature
Tiny audible signature
These things ... well they are tiny. Finding them is ridiculously difficult, even for advanced military hardware.
Due to earth's athmosphere (ie. the wind generating small lensing effects) the smallest object you can find from 100km distance is about 15x15 cm. That's the theoretical limit. Let's say you can get military hardware half as good as that, well then you can find a 1m x 10cm drone from about 400 km distance. Since drones fly at a stupid altitude (we're talking 50 meters or maybe less), finding them from sea level is not possible at all, so basically they'd need a plane in the air less than 400 km from the drone. And this is assuming they don't make it really hard (paint the bottom to look like a cloud, paint the top to look like the sea, use a light nonconductive material for wings and don't let the engine's heat leak into the structure itself. Or better yet : use an engine that's too powerfull, run it at really low settings, so it doesn't get hot in the first place. Not hard, especially in tiny planes).
(that's also the problem for terrorism using these things. Even over US soil, assuming the autopilot is not stupid (and the RC doesn't give it away), doesn't fly over bases and the like, the US military needs to have a spyplane will be very invasive privacy-wise. But once a few muslims figure this out ... the discussion is basically over, and the choice is between the military being able to see the pattern on your swimshorts in your own backyard live, or random explosions in cities).
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure that our guns could reach higher than a drone could fly. Of course, those were navy main deck guns, and whalers don't have anything as big, or as powerful available to them.
What whalers MIGHT get hold of, are some missiles. Shoulder launched SAM missiles, if they can acquire a lock on the drone. Drones are rather stealthy, lacking a lot of the heat, radio, and/or magnetism associated with older and/or ancient aircraft. So - you rely on sight? Fly-by-wire?
But, when you get down to it, I think the Iranians have the best idea. Just use some radio equipment to jam communications, the GPS spoof it into landing on the water, recover the blasted thing yourself, and the Greenies are out one drone.
All that said - I do wish the Japanese would quit hunting whales. It's not like they are going to starve without them. Back in the day when there were tens of thousands of any given species, and mankind only captured a few dozen whales per year, things were cool. Today, the population is just to damned low, and we've become to damned efficient. Extinction threatens, and that just sucks.
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I think AAA is typically effective only to about 10k feet. Then again, a drone doesn't move that fast and probably won't evade fire, so it could be effective much higher. As you say we're talking about military-grade AAA here and usually it is only effective with lots of gun and/or very good radar guidance, and the guns are very large. Back in WW2 you'd probably have 1000 guns firing at 200 planes and maybe 20 of them would get shot down in a 15 minute encounter (though no doubt it made the attackers les
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Predators and Reapers fly at around 25k feet. Don't think your gun is going to get there accurately, if at all.
What whalers MIGHT get hold of, are some missiles. Shoulder launched SAM missiles, if they can acquire a lock on the drone.
So lets assume a smaller drone, not a Predator. Something the size of your car, at 10k feet. The typical shoulder fired SAM, Strela SA-7. Passive infrared, and with a ceiling
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:4, Interesting)
By 1500 most of the desirable whales in the Bay of Biscay were gone. [marinebio.net] The large sailing ships ventured further and further away – as far as Newfoundland.
However, by the early 1600 and 1700s [ehow.com] commercial merchant ship owners realized the profits of the whaling trade and a shift began toward large scale whaling by companies.
1500-1800, Europeans (Dutch, English, Basques, etc) were actively fishing the Atlantic, and not just single ships, but fleets of a couple dozen or more [wikipedia.org].
We have been doing this for a long, long time.
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And if the drone is high in the sky then just guns won't make it, you'd need some missile. Would whale fishing cover the costs of firing perhaps several guided missiles on each trip ?
Not a guided missile. A harpoon with an EMP payload on it.
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Besides, the drone has to be able to reach escape velocity so that it can monitor the whalers on the moon. No missile can possibly catch that....
Re:Looks like drones aren't just for governments. (Score:5, Informative)
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While sea sheppards were definitely harassing the whaling vessel with Ady Gil, it is hard to watch the footage and not see it as that the Ady Gil was rammed by the whalers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brw6JN0lQXY&feature=related [youtube.com]
I just watched the videos and it's not clear to me one way or another.
It is clear that the Ady Gil was under power, though moving slowly, while the whaler was moving at a good clip. It's also clear that the whaler wasn't at all upset about having collided with the Ady Gil. I don't see any evidence that either boat made any attempt to change course or speed.
I think it was a game of chicken. Either side could have blinked, but neither did. The captain of the Ady Gil thought the whaler would blink, in
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Did you see the same video as the rest of us AC ? The engines were obviously on it was pushing water and you can can see its wake once it started getting closer.
So people really have this much time and money? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also have these people actually tried whale meat? It's delicious.
What do you spend your time doing? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a lot of people on the planet, and so a lot of time being spent by them, why does the small amount of time these people spend grate on you that much? What do you spend your time doing?
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illegal shit ? (Score:2)
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It's not the _time_ being wasted that they're bothered about, it's the whales being wasted that bothers them.
Your point, that I was addressing, was "Do these people really have nothing better to do with their time".
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Informative)
This group was founded by a guy who got kicked out of Greenpeace for being too extreme. Logic has nothing to do with their decisions.
That said, possible justifications might include the argument that the whales are too intelligent to ethically kill, or the argument that the law only allows killing whales for scientific research but the Japanese are instead killing them for food/profit (despite the word "research" written on the sides of their ships).
I'd be very surprised if they aren't all vegans.
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe Watson left Greenpeace because they were softening up. Different interpretations?
The Japanese have massive factory ships dedicated to cutting up and conditioning whales, and according to Wikipedia: “The efficiency of these ships and the predation they carried out on whales contributed greatly to the animal's precipitous decline.”
These are, supposedly, research vessels. You have to appreciate the hypocrisy.
Also, Sea Shepherd vessels *are* vegan, to the best of my knowledge.
And SSCS also have a PGP key to send them encrypted email, c'mon, /. should approve of them.
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see how anything in your comment is related or answers my previous comment.
Also, I think your grossly exaggerating, but maybe you're simply not used to the concept of “civil society” and activism.
Lastly, saying SSCS are cowards is amusing, given they engage in direct action and walk the talk, contrary to many environmentalist NGOs.
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Insightful)
So they are both self-righteous assholes and cowards in my book.
Consider them self-righteous assholes all you want, but calling them (or the Occupiers, for that matter) "cowards" is patently absurd. I suspect you have no conception of what real courage looks like, but feel all tough and brave because you slapped a "Support our Troops" sticker on your SUV.
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Interesting)
Paul Watson was asked to leave Greenpeace because when GP was attempting to get charitable status with the US IRS, the IRS told them "No property damage". Later that week, Watson disarmed a harp seal hunter who was clubbing a seal to death and tossed the club into the ocean. That is considered property damage and the board asked him to resign.
A few years later, one of the other founders of GP decided that they had become too soft, left and joined Sea Shepherd.
I believe everyone on board SS's ships are vegetarian, if not Vegan.
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I'm trying to figure out if you're trolling, or just have never considered the ethics of hunting and killing other sentient species for pleasure.
You may not realise this, but whaling is actually against international regulations. Sea Shepherd simply enforce the ban in International waters, given no one else does. They also protect and defend many other marine species.
It's called conservation.
Overfishing and fucked up fishing practices are incredibly common place, it's good we have some people trying to prev
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I don't think they're doing it for fun.
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The whole whaling debate is fueled by black and white arguments.
Truth is, that the nations involved in whaling only allow hunting on selected species that have sustainable stock. Sea Shepherd has lost most of it's credibility ages ago, and their mode of operation is threatening and destroying lives.
I'll set fire to all my karma and throw in some kind words on the subject of seal hunting as well ;)
Fortunately there aren't many PETA-people around in Norway, they tend to freeze to death.
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As far as I can tell, Sea Shepherd's sinking of ships has never resulted in injuries, and never happened with people on them. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested.
I find it very hard to condone harming sentient beings to defend ideas, but the destruction of property doesn't seem like an unbearable tactic.
Most social movements have involved some degree of sabotaging, and not to call a sympathy card here, but the French Résistance resorted to sabotage extensively.
I agree that ends don'
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They have tried to sink boats with fishermen aboard, but I will not neglect the fact that on one occasion one can argue who ran into who.
For a boat captain to lose his boat which e has invested his life in, it is not a trivial matter. At least in Norway we are not talking big business, just plain fishermen.
The means are not justified in my view.
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I agree that attacking small fishermen is not the nicest thing. And I'd much rather there were programmes to help fishermen transition to different jobs, like transforming poachers into foresters generally yields great results (such as in central Africa).
That being said, you could use the same argument for fishermen overfishing tuna in the Mediterranean and driving it to extinction. One by one they are just “small fishermen trying to make a living”, on a larger scale (and what with the commercia
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Right, because their 13 ton composite ship is going to sink a 660 ton steel whaling ship.
It's simply luck that more extremist folks haven't gotten on bored with straight out sinking of Japanese ships with weapons easily obtainable on the black market.
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so why is there just so much opposition to the whaling?
I don't know. Difference of opinions?
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7188674.stm [bbc.co.uk]
that means, the majority of the countries which have a stake in this, are against whaling. but, japan, engages in whaling on its own accord.
then lets reflect on this - where does the 'individual freedom' stop ? see, majority of the countries in the world find something unethical and ban something, like slavery. and then is it ok if i broke accord and go against majority, and engage in slaving within my own country or international waters/zones - based on my own 'freedom' ?
it is a simple case of individual freedom's limits. there is no unlimited individual freedom, and there cant be unlimited individual freedom. you cant just go shit in your neighbor's backyard, or your neighbor cant just shit on the streets in common space. there are all encompassing rules that everyone needs to obey for society to EXIST (note how i didnt say 'work', but, even to exist), and these rules are determined by the overall level of ethics and morals understanding of the entire society. (planet in this case).
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Seriously, if you think the amount of a particular
and (Score:3)
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:4, Informative)
The Japanese are not "Whaling", they are conducting "Research" which apparently involves stockpiling whale meat for consumption. The Japanese whaling fleet has repeatedly violated international treaties and at least one off-limits whale sanctuary. The largest power in the area is Australia and they refuse to enforce the international treaties that apply to the sanctuary, hence Sea Shepard has to step in and enforce the law.
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I don't get the opposition to hunting non-endangered whales. The whales being hunted(mostly minke whales), are nowhere near endangered, so why is there just so much opposition to the whaling?
So, lets just hunt them until they are endangered and then move on to the next species?
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"I don't get the opposition to hunting non-endangered whales. The whales being hunted(mostly minke whales), are nowhere near endangered"
Yet.
And not only mink whales are being hunted.
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a narrow line between "endangered" and "not endangered". The seas have grown barren, compared to 300 years ago. With five years of sea duty behind me, I can state that whale sightings are rare, dolphins are only somewhat less rare.
It's a bit tough to find tales of life at sea 300 or more years ago, that don't include a lot of superstitious nonsense, but it seems to have been common for ships to be constantly trailed by dolphins, and whales were common sights. With each passing decade, there are fewer and fewer.
The only two explanations for that, that make any sense, are over hunting, and pollution.
We really need to allow the ocean, and the populations found in the ocean to recover. Why wait until any given species is actually "endangered" before trying to conserve resources?
Humans are not in danger of extinction (Score:2)
Is it OK to hunt humans then?
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I don't get the opposition to hunting non-endangered whales. The whales being hunted(mostly minke whales), are nowhere near endangered, so why is there just so much opposition to the whaling?
Because the Save-The-Whales crowd won the PR war a long time ago. Whales are animals, nothing more. But groups like Greenpeace (very smartly, I might add) have fudged that fact with fluff about whales being nearly as smart as humans, having their own language, etc, when there's really no evidence of the sort. Some animals are smarter than others, but in the end, they're just animals. Either there here for our use or they aren't. If a species of whale isn't endangered, then there's no more moral qualms about
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing anti-whalers to nuclear power opponents is disingenuous. The opponents of nuclear power are crying against the dangers and pollution it can cause, ignoring the fact that compared to other energy sources it's relatively safe and clean. Their campaign is self-contradictory.
The anti-whalers are against the killing of these and other species, because they consider this an immoral act the seriousness of which trumps the matters past that. Even if you don't agree with them, you can't say it's not wise. And they do have a point. Whales are species with recognized cognitive abilities. You know what's NOT wise? Hunting them. Do you also realise that whaling is banned by many countries, and part of what the Sea Shepherds are doing is enforcing laws that nobody else is?
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:4, Insightful)
The opponents of nuclear power are crying against the dangers and pollution it can cause, ignoring the fact that compared to other energy sources it's relatively safe and clean.
Nuclear is safe and clean as long as you ignore the risk of an accident.
We can pretend that the operators won't cut corners and regulators won't ignore violations, but that isn't realistic.
I can sell you some really cheap land in Japan if you ever want to live on the end result of "relatively safe and clean."
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I just want to be clear about what you are saying.
Is the land near any of hundreds of thousands of dirty, radioactive coal power plants? Or is it near one of the three (ever! worldwide!) nuclear power plants which have ever leaked as much radiation as the average alternative coal plant?
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I guess you didn't see today's report regarding Fukushima.
No nukes until we take the profit out of it. If there's a company involved, and a dollar to be made, it will never be safe.
It's only "bad" when done for sport. Killing for fun is bad. There is no matter "past that".
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If you ignore how the actual plants are produced. Hint: solar isn't very clean to build on the scale it has to be to work. Hydro is likely the most dangerous and destroys environments. Wind is extremely expensive and makes large tracts of land unusable. And finally, none of them are actually answers. Solar and wind are not reliable enough and never will be with out level of technology, and that is unlikely to change soon. Hydro can only be built
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Nuclear is the safest, cleanest, and cheapest option we have. We need to stop listening to fearmongers and figure out how to make it work right.
60+ years hasn't been long enough to "figure out how to make it work right"?
Fear (Score:3)
60+ years hasn't been long enough to "figure out how to make it work right"?
No. Not in our current climate of fear. It's a political third rail. Investors don't give nuclear a second thought. Scientists and engineers have limited funding. Many of our best minds avoid the field altogether as a dead end career. Who wants to be working in nuclear? The future is elsewhere.
(personal position: nuclear power could certainly be safe, but I've yet to find an organization I'd trust to not cut corners on something so expensive and dangerous. I've also yet to find a regulatory agency wi
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in southern Germany you still have to test mushrooms and wild boar for radioactivity because of the Chernobyl accident 1986. It's mostly due to Cs137 which has a half life of ~ 30 years. I remember having to stay indoors for days as a child (i was 5 at that time) because of that accident. The linear distance to Chernobyl is about 1400 km.
I would call that very much polluting.
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so this is less dirtier than making solarpanels.
you sir, are a troll.
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Your argument ignores this amazing thing called "progress". Calling solar and wind "pipe dreams" is extremely short-sighted.
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" Wind (...) makes large tracts of land unusable.
I'd like to know how 60 metre tall wind turbines on top of mountains can do that. But hey, it's your dream, run it as you like.
And finally, none of them are actually answers. Solar and wind are not reliable enough and never will be with out level of technology, and that is unlikely to change soon. Hydro can only be built in some places and usually is not for the aforementioned reasons. Nuclear is the safest, cleanest, and cheapest option we have. We need to stop listening to fearmongers and figure out how to make it work right. Coal and oil are power until that happens. Solar and wind are pipedreams.
What a fucking naysayer. What happened to the bold Americans that conquered the West? Hiding under your bed crying and shitting your pants?
Re:So people really have this much time and money? (Score:5, Interesting)
The easiest would be to just put it in boxes and throw it down the Mariana Trench. There is no possibility of anyone getting it back, and if it ever comes back up naturally it'll be long after safe decay. The problem is political: Throwing nuclear waste in the ocean violates international law, and for some reason no politician wants to start the process of changing that.
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And do you really think harpooning and electrocuting the largest mammals on earth whose brain power and emotional states are generally compared to say YOU , don't you think thats a little...off?
I don't see why their brain power is all that important. Less intelligent animals don't matter, then?
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Less intelligent animals don't matter, then?
Not as much, anyway.
For example, the bar is lower for medical research performed on rats and mice than dogs, chimpanzees and gorillas. Most people feel more sympathy towards animals that can be taught to communicate via sign language (such as gorillas) or other means than rodents that barely remember mazes./p?
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Not as much, anyway.
In your (or other people's) opinion, anyway.
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well, the reasoning is that they (the animals) can understand the plight they're in in they got more brain power.
basically that's the same reason why it's not ok to make dogs starve but it is ok to make flies that eat rotten dog meat starve.
that said, the "research" performed by japanese whalers is ridiculous - like researching the best way to do whaling. eh. as a food source whales aren't sustainable.
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well, the reasoning is that they (the animals) can understand the plight they're in in they got more brain power.
I don't see how that matters objectively. Looks like it's just their opinion that we shouldn't kill intelligent animals.
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Stop trolling, I'm in doubt you're doing the "false dilemma" or the "straw man" logical fallacies...
I wasn't trolling, and I wasn't stating anything. I don't know how that was a false dilemma.
I was asking if less intelligent animals mattered. That's why it was in the form of a question. I wanted to know if the one I replied to believed that less intelligent animals are objectively less important.
I also expect not to be eaten, if I encounter an intelligent alien...
Perhaps they will find us so unintelligent and inefficient that they will kill us without hesitation.
I'd like to know what criteria they use to spare a life
Their own beliefs.
In any case, I was just saying that I see no magical reason that "intelligent" animals are mor
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And do you really think harpooning and electrocuting the largest mammals on earth whose brain power and emotional states are generally compared to say YOU , don't you think thats a little...off?
Are you saying killing is ok as long as the target is dumber than you? Does this also expand to other humans?
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Don't the Japanese have problems getting rid of all the meat they harvest? From what I've read there isn't much of a market for it, so they have to give it away to schools which can force their pupils to eat it.
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In other news salmon and tuna are running out (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is it that those guys still act like it's 1968? We have different problems these days!
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http://www.nasco.int/ [nasco.int] for Salmon
http://www.tunaresearch.org/ [tunaresearch.org] for Tuna
And you forgot cod: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/greenpeace-ship-sails-to-save-north-sea-cod [greenpeace.org.uk]
And to be fair to them, while I don't see myself joining their fight, at least they have the balls to stand up for something, sure there are problems in the world, but most people don't bother addressing those problems either. Apathy, not whale conserva
Re:In other news salmon and tuna are running out (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news, Sea Shepherd are a conservation group, they defend all marine species, including Tuna (for which they have been doing a major Mediterranean campaign). You should check the width of their action before pointing out “boo, there are other fish species endangered, so you get no points for protecting one and not all of them!”.
Interesting that while TFA is about clever use of technology in a space where it's not obvious, most slashdotters seem more interested in bashing the group of people using this technology for not following their (very traditional and anthropocentric) view of life. Nice.
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As well as lots of other species. No fuss about those.
So if I'm not taking action about every single issue on the planet, I'm automatically discredited?
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Swarm drones (Score:2)
Anti-Drone Systems: Japanese-Iranian Joint Venture (Score:2)
Company name: Jairan. Project code name: Rodan!
This will definitely be a growth area in military industry in the next few years, as all smaller countries scramble to rid themselves of those meddling spy drones. Look for them at the next air warfare exhibition.
But what could they be . . . ? Anti-GPS radio beams . . . ? Laser pointers to blind the pilots back at the command base . . . ?
C'mom, ./er's . . . put on your imagination caps, and tell us your ideas! This anti-whaling skirmish is just the start
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Not their first use of awesome tech (Score:2)
Sea Shepard are not new to fancy high tech gear. Sure last year they may have been firing bow and arrows at the Japanese whaling fleet, but they were doing it from one hell of an awesome boat [wikipedia.org].
At least it was one hell of an awesome boat until the idiots managed to get it sunk / sink it (depending on who you ask) in a collision with a whaling boat.
The whalers are going to be running scared. (Score:5, Funny)
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Damn that thing really is a bird of prey isn't it?!
I used to be ... (Score:2, Funny)
I used to be an anti-whaling activist, but then I took an arrow in the knee.
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I used to be a whale, but then I took a harpoon to the face.
Only to find them? (Score:2)
Can't these things even carry a small torpedo, then?
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Technically, yes, assuming the drone is big enough to carry the weight. However Sea Shepherd may be pretty aggressive, they will always try to prevent loss of life. That includes lives of whales, but also of people (their own, and the Japanese whalers).
Kudos (Score:2)
Kudos to the Sea Shephard Society!
TFS is wrong: over 800 whales saved last year... (Score:2)
According to the article linked in the summary, last year the Japanese fleet managed to kill less than 200 whales out of a quota of over 1,000. So their mission was pretty successful, and apparently this year they try to do even better.
On a personal note: I don't agree with whaling (it's not a much wanted food source, in contrast to other species of fish), but also don't agree with their often quite aggressive tactics. Yet they do get the headlines, and that may spark more people to think about conservation
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Said this way, this is mostly FUD.
SSCS have never been convicted in court, to the best of my knowledge.
Even though they have sunk a good number of ships, including some of the Norwegian fleet a while back.
They have thrown rancid butter acid on illegal shipping vessels' decks as stink bombs. We're not talking fluoridicric acid here.
Look out for the “they threw acid at us” spin, the Japanese whaling industry is in an public image war with Sea Shepherd.
“Just doing their jobs” is probabl
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Those guys ... endanger the lives of fishermen who are just doing their jobs.
If I recall correctly, the "just doing my job" bit didn't fly too well at Nuremberg.
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Whales are not fish.