Harpooned: Japanese Cetacean Research Simulator

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2008-01-15 10:40am

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2008-01-15 11:23am

In related news...

Japanese whalers seize protestors

Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean seized two protesters and tied them to the mast of one of their harpoon ships, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has said, a claim hotly disputed by Japan.

"They have assaulted and kidnapped two of my crew," Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin told Fairfax Media last night as his ship chased the whaler with his men aboard.

Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research confirmed two anti-whaling activists were being held, but institute director-general Minoru Morimoto has denied the men were tied up.

By around 11pm last night Australian Benjamin Potts and Briton Giles Lane had been held for five hours on the harpoon ship Yushin Maru No 2.

Earlier in the day they had gone aboard the whaler to deliver a letter, saying they had done so because the Japanese had refused to acknowledge radio communications.

"I am not boarding your ship with the intent to commit a crime, to rob you or to inflict injury upon your crew and yourself or damage to your ship," the letter said.

The were delivering the message and then "request that you allow me to disembark from your vessel without harm or seizure."

Mr Morimoto confirmed the two men had been taken into custody, and said they were taken to a secure room.

"Any accusations that we have tied them up or assaulted them are completely untrue," Mr Morimoto said.

"It is illegal to board another country's vessels on the high seas. As a result, at this stage, they are being held in custody while decisions are made on their future," he said in a statement.

"The two boarded the Yushin Maru No 2 after they made attempts to entangle the screw of the vessel using ropes and throwing bottles of acid on to the decks."

But Watson said as the two boarded Yushin Maru the Japanese attacked them.

"First of all they tried to throw Benjamin Potts overboard, but he managed to get his way out of that.

"Then they assaulted Giles Lane. He seems to be in some pain. They tied him up incredible number of ropes.

"It looks like some kind of bondage movie. Its ridiculous."

Source, plus a picture

On-topic, I have to say that this game looks hilarious. Apparently the results screen after every level tells you how many packs of dog food and whaleburgers you made.

SCRawl · Post by **SCRawl** » 2008-01-15 11:51am

I have to say, this whole "we can't harvest whales for food, but we can perform research on them, and if a few whales get harvested in the process, that's just a happy coincidence" policy always struck me as rather cheeky. It isn't as though they're fooling anyone, are they?

It's a harmless little game, but the point is clear enough. I doubt that anyone cares, but just in case...

SPOILERS

...if you play the game to its conclusion, the whales go extinct. Duh.

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2008-01-15 02:52pm

Remind me, but isn't Sea Shepherd the group which declared their intention to actually ram the Japanese vessels? They're not protestors, they're naval eco-terrorists.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2008-01-15 03:49pm

Archaic` wrote:Remind me, but isn't Sea Shepherd the group which declared their intention to actually ram the Japanese vessels? They're not protestors, they're naval eco-terrorists.

Even if that were the case: as far as I'm concerned, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I mean, if the Japanese can murder whales in the name of "Scientific research" then maybe the Japanese whaling ships shouldn't "Get in the way of our heavily armored, reinforced, very sharp prow and get so badly damaged they have to put in to port"

Analyze that.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2008-01-15 04:39pm

Archaic` wrote:Remind me, but isn't Sea Shepherd the group which declared their intention to actually ram the Japanese vessels? They're not protestors, they're naval eco-terrorists.

They've sunk fishing craft before, but somehow the group has always escaped serious charges. By any rights they should be sunk on sight by any interested warship, and the crew machine gunned in the sea as pirates.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2008-01-15 06:22pm

I still think we need to send a sub down South to follow around flocks of whales and when the Japanese get close, broadcast the 'panic' signal on its active sonar and cause all the whales to run for it.

Then put the sub directly between the Wales and the ship. And if they harpoon the sub, return fire with a UGM-84 saying they fired first and we had to act in self defense.

The_Saint · Post by **The_Saint** » 2008-01-15 06:45pm

News just in: whaling is apparently now illegal in our waters

annnd ... news just at hand.. HMAS Collins slips anchor today...

hmmm wishful thinking....

game looks fun!

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2008-01-15 09:21pm

Chardok wrote:
Archaic` wrote:Remind me, but isn't Sea Shepherd the group which declared their intention to actually ram the Japanese vessels? They're not protestors, they're naval eco-terrorists.
Even if that were the case: as far as I'm concerned, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I mean, if the Japanese can murder whales in the name of "Scientific research" then maybe the Japanese whaling ships shouldn't "Get in the way of our heavily armored, reinforced, very sharp prow and get so badly damaged they have to put in to port"

Analyze that.

Right, because hunters are as bad as murderers.

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2008-01-16 01:00am

I've always thought that Japan, Norway, and Iceland would probably form some sort of pseudoscientific organization over this. Irony, these paragon liberal first world nations catching flak from the environmentalists.

Edit: Oh wait, they already did. Now all that's left is to make a BS technothriller strategy game where the Tripartite Fleet fights the Sea Shepherd Armada.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2008-01-16 01:45am

Chris OFarrell wrote:I still think we need to send a sub down South to follow around flocks of whales and when the Japanese get close, broadcast the 'panic' signal on its active sonar and cause all the whales to run for it.

Then put the sub directly between the Wales and the ship. And if they harpoon the sub, return fire with a UGM-84 saying they fired first and we had to act in self defense.

Isn't the active sonar incredibly loud? As in "will probably deafen the whales" loud? I thought I'd heard that active sonar was already impacting whales without following them around and yelling in their ears whenever whalers came around.

Also, that would be a pretty flimsy justification for sinking a ship and killing a bunch of whalers.

I mean, that UGM-84 has to cost a shit-ton of money. Am I right?

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2008-01-16 07:19pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
Chris OFarrell wrote:I still think we need to send a sub down South to follow around flocks of whales and when the Japanese get close, broadcast the 'panic' signal on its active sonar and cause all the whales to run for it.

Then put the sub directly between the Wales and the ship. And if they harpoon the sub, return fire with a UGM-84 saying they fired first and we had to act in self defense.
Isn't the active sonar incredibly loud? As in "will probably deafen the whales" loud? I thought I'd heard that active sonar was already impacting whales without following them around and yelling in their ears whenever whalers came around.

When you use it to blast away looking for subs, sure. I'm sure they have volume controls on the things

Also, that would be a pretty flimsy justification for sinking a ship and killing a bunch of whalers.

I mean, that UGM-84 has to cost a shit-ton of money. Am I right?

Good point. Hmm. Well I guess we might have some surplus torpedoes lying around somewhere...

I mean hell. If the Japanese are going to continue to flaunt their hunting and DARE someone to do anything about it, well, someone might.

I don't have anything against Whaling for food per se. But if clear scientific evidence shows the species is *endangered* and its unsustainable to hunt them by any measure and the international community decides to halt it...THEN Japan unapologetically continues to hunt, saying with a straight face this is all 'scientific research'...

The shear arrogance of it just pisses me off something fierce, the people crewing those ships can't possibly be in the dark about what they are doing.

Perhaps SINKING the ship is too much of an overreaction.

Boarding, seizing and taking it into port for fishing illegally in Australian antarctic waters on the other hand...

Dendrobius · Post by **Dendrobius** » 2008-01-17 02:35am

Chris OFarrell wrote:I don't have anything against Whaling for food per se. But if clear scientific evidence shows the species is *endangered* and its unsustainable to hunt them by any measure and the international community decides to halt it...THEN Japan unapologetically continues to hunt, saying with a straight face this is all 'scientific research'...

Is there? I haven't heard anything on the news regarding any scientific evidence for or against, just a lot of chest beating about "save the whales" which I'm getting truly sick and tired of. Reminds me greatly of the "but think of the children!!" line of argument.

All I'm seeing is Sea Shepherd being an ass out there. To be completely honest, I couldn't give a flying crap about the Japanese whaling. I'm sure they're not stupid enough to hunt whales to extinction since that's somewhat counterproductive in the long term, and the Japanese if anything are not stupid. We should send the RAN down there, if just to sink the Sea Shepherd and leave the Japanese in peace. If they really were fishing in Australian territorial waters we'd be making a bigger stink than what's happening at the moment.

AniThyng · Post by **AniThyng** » 2008-01-17 07:52am

Seriously now, "murdering" whales? Is there a cut of point where an animal is considered "murdered" as opposed to "animalslaughtered"? It's endangeredness? it's intelligence? it's cuteness?

-edit-

Nevermind, I guess it's based on the needlessness. No one really *needs* to eat whale...

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2008-01-17 08:20am

I don't think the problem is with "their killing the sea peoples !". The problem is there is few whales left and the Japaneese might eat them all. A fat bird like dodo is sorely missed today; imagine how much it would suck if whales dissappeared.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2008-01-17 02:25pm

You want to know what else?

They're actively marketing whale meat for food in Japan.

Yeah. You read that right. People, for the most part, aren't even eating the meat that they're trying to sell, so they're taking the meat to schools, in stores, handing out free samples, to create a market.

Also, to the people who think, "Oh they're not going to be stupid." Yes they are. They ARE that stupid. People are people no matter where they are, and people are STUPID. Japan's fished a good hunk of its local species to extinction or near extinction and are currently going farther afield to fish other country's waters to extinction. Ever noticed how endangered animal parts and meat get sold as aphrodisiacs? Ever wonder why those animals are endangered in the first place?

Sorry, it's the only link I could find on short notice

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2008-01-17 02:30pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
Chardok wrote:
Archaic` wrote:Remind me, but isn't Sea Shepherd the group which declared their intention to actually ram the Japanese vessels? They're not protestors, they're naval eco-terrorists.
Even if that were the case: as far as I'm concerned, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I mean, if the Japanese can murder whales in the name of "Scientific research" then maybe the Japanese whaling ships shouldn't "Get in the way of our heavily armored, reinforced, very sharp prow and get so badly damaged they have to put in to port"

Analyze that.
Right, because hunters are as bad as murderers.

Almost. I am just fine sinking whaling ships. I just wish a nations navy would do it instead of having to have admittedly crazy people commit acts of piracy.

Also, that would be a pretty flimsy justification for sinking a ship and killing a bunch of whalers.

OK. How about we just be honest with it, and torpedoe them for murdering an organism that is worthy of direct moral consideration. I would be just fine with that.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2008-01-17 02:40pm

I support killing whales in the name of research. Just like I support subs sinking whaling ships in name of weapons research.

On topic : Wish this game was available for cellphones. This is the kind of stylish, funny games cellphones need. Not exercises in futility like mobile versions of Brothers in Arms or Call of Duty,

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2008-01-17 02:41pm

Is there? I haven't heard anything on the news regarding any scientific evidence for or against, just a lot of chest beating about "save the whales" which I'm getting truly sick and tired of. Reminds me greatly of the "but think of the children!!" line of argument.

Whales exist in small numbers, have large ages of maturity, and reproduce slowly and in small numbers. Combine hunting with the fact that we are fishing the oceans clean and we have a sustainability problem. Of course, lets not even get into the fact that the countries that are saying they can sustain whaling cannot even sustain stocks of fish which are far more amenable to commercial harvest.

And lets not even get into the fact that I can sit here and list reasons why whales are worthy of direct moral consideration and killing them is something if not murder, very close to it.

All I'm seeing is Sea Shepherd being an ass out there.

As far as I am concerned they are the only ones with the balls and will to do the right thing in this instance.

To be completely honest, I couldn't give a flying crap about the Japanese whaling. I'm sure they're not stupid enough to hunt whales to extinction since that's somewhat counterproductive in the long term, and the Japanese if anything are not stupid.

Even if I grant you that they are not going to hunt the whales to extinction, something there is plenty of historical precedent for, and plenty of ecological reasons why it WILL occur, you are still begging the question that it is OK to kill even a single whale. If you want to get into that particular argument, we should split this thread to SLAM

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2008-01-17 02:46pm

The US needs to build a bunch of mini-subs equipped with rocket-propelled harpoons to patrol the nearby coasts. Metal fish that harpoon back!

Eris · Post by **Eris** » 2008-01-17 02:47pm

AniThyng wrote:Seriously now, "murdering" whales? Is there a cut of point where an animal is considered "murdered" as opposed to "animalslaughtered"? It's endangeredness? it's intelligence? it's cuteness?

-edit-

Nevermind, I guess it's based on the needlessness. No one really *needs* to eat whale...

Well, as Mayabird pointed out, it goes beyond needlessness. There isn't a native market for whale meat in Japan to speak of, so they're actively creating one to sell whale meat. That alone is kind of twisted, but there isn't a cutoff point to where the death of an animal is able to qualify as murder, since all murder is is morally wrong killing.

Technically you could murder an ant, but that'd be enormously difficult seeing as it's hard to build up a case that an ant has moral value without some extremely unusual and unlikely circumstances. (The kind you only ever see cooked up to demonstrate a point.) In general, though, it's a good rule of thumb to say the more intelligent, self-aware, and capable of sophisticated higher-brain function an animal is, the easier it is to make a case for its moral worth in broader cases.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2008-01-17 02:50pm

Eris wrote:
AniThyng wrote:Seriously now, "murdering" whales? Is there a cut of point where an animal is considered "murdered" as opposed to "animalslaughtered"? It's endangeredness? it's intelligence? it's cuteness?

-edit-

Nevermind, I guess it's based on the needlessness. No one really *needs* to eat whale...
Well, as Mayabird pointed out, it goes beyond needlessness. There isn't a native market for whale meat in Japan to speak of, so they're actively creating one to sell whale meat. That alone is kind of twisted, but there isn't a cutoff point to where the death of an animal is able to qualify as murder, since all murder is is morally wrong killing.

Technically you could murder an ant, but that'd be enormously difficult seeing as it's hard to build up a case that an ant has moral value without some extremely unusual and unlikely circumstances. (The kind you only ever see cooked up to demonstrate a point.) In general, though, it's a good rule of thumb to say the more intelligent, self-aware, and capable of sophisticated higher-brain function an animal is, the easier it is to make a case for its moral worth in broader cases.

And in that, whales qualify. They exist in complex social groups, and at least some species are capable of abstract thinking, cultural learning, and even in orca at least, grief for the dead.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2008-01-17 02:59pm

Interesting. I know many mammals care for their young and some form groups. But abstract thinking and culture seems foreign to a cow herd or a rat colony. So are whales a step higher than typical mammels we eat or kill ?

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2008-01-17 03:12pm

I'm not sure it really matters whether its ethical to kill them or not, since it basically qualifies as a needless waste. As others have already pointed out, what possible reason could Japan have to need whale meat? Is there a sudden famine developing in the country? Are Whale organs an essential component in Playstation 3s?

Basically its just exploiting whales for pointless commercial reasons, and that ought to be enough alone to condemn them.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2008-01-17 03:16pm

Several. Not to imply some sort of step-wise goal based progression in evolution, but they are a LOT smarter.

Orca and Grey whales are the best examples. Orca feed on different species depending on where their territory is. They interbreed with other populations enough that it is not genetically encoded, but the target species and hunting techniques are passed to offspring culturally. Along the coast of S. America, IIRC off Chilli there are sea lion colonies. Orca there teach their offspring how to safely propel themselves up onto the beach to catch seal pups. Orca in antarctica have been observed cooperating to form waves to break up ice sheets, and push seals off of them.

Off the coast of California they use underwater canyons as echo chambers to hunt and kill Grey whales. The Grey whales know to run silent in these areas and when attacked, mothers will do something that very few species will do (elephants and some primates IIRC) they will lift their offspring out of harms way. One individual when observed a few years ago was observed to lift her baby out of the water as Orca tried to drown it supporting her weakened calf. Most animals will not think to do this. They will try to distract the predator through a ritualized behavior, or will attack it, either individually or through mobbing. But almost never will they try to counter a predators use of the environment. Another individual defended her offspring by lifting it completely out of the water so the orca couldnt ram it. The orca on the other hand coordinated their ramming of both mother and offspring so that there was no let-up. Over the course of 4 hours the mother managed to get her and her baby into shallow water where the orca could not build the momentum to ram them. All of that was during a training hunt for the orca. They were teaching their offspring how to hunt Grey Whale calves.

I could go on, and on. Including the evidence as tentative (and it is) as it is for language in some cetaceans.