Anonymous have taken down five Icelandic government websites in a protest against whale-hunting by the North Atlantic nation.
The sites, which included the prime minister's official website and that of the environment and interior ministries, went offline on Friday and remained down until about midday on Saturday.
Iceland is a member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), an inter-governmental body which imposed a ban on all commercial whaling from 1986. The moratorium remains in place, but both Iceland and Norway continue to hunt whales.
Iceland has relied on fishing and whaling as a key part of its economy. Icelanders argue whales reduce the stocks of the fish they hunt for.
Since its devastating financial meltdown in 2008 and a sharp currency devaluation, however, tourism has boomed and whale tours are increasingly popular.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/11/28/us-iceland-hackers-idUKKBN0TH0GJ20151128
When will NATO take on the real global terrorist: Iceland?
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Pic related.
>>837
What's the problem with whaling? I mean, at its base, these Icelanders aren't hurting anyone with this, and in fact preserving their environment through checking the whale population, as well as feeding their own people.
To bring out my true feelings here, it just seems like more outrage culture, the thought that we must have something to be enraged at. And here it's whales. Why though? Because whales are nice, majestic creatures! You never see any 'save the alligators' rallies...
>>837
Where are the Whale Wars reality show people?
>>878
The real problem is bees.
They're dying out any it's going to kill a major part of the eco-system. Nobody cares, because "fuck bees".
>>937
But nobody is actively hunting bees unless they build a hive in someone's attic.
>>937
I agree fully
>>949
The reason bees are dying out is because of human intervention. Pesticide use, mainly. If bees die, many plants will do without their main source of pollination, and that will devastate almost every ecosystem in America. Surely it's a more just cause than fighting for a non-endangered species, who's hunts affect nothing?
fucking pinko treehuggers
I'm sick of countries overfishing the ocean. They always hide behind "its our culture" or muh sovereignty arguments but the reality is that they are fucking destroying the ocean ecosystem.
Japan for instance are the most retarded at this considering that whaling is actually subsidized by the taxpayer, its not profitable, its served to dogs, its canned, they have to force schools to serve it for lunch because nobody wants to eat it.
They recently studied what was in whale meat served in Japan and found that it had 400x the mercury that was safe for consumption.
Japan also tries to say that they have a cultural tradition of whaling and that might hold some clout however whaling with massive fucking nets off the Antarctic coast and near Australia is not traditional at all.
>>987
Fantastic contribution to the discussion.
>>878
>what's the problem with whaling
They are incredibly important to the ocean ecosystem. They manage populations, their shit and piss are important for different species and their decaying massive carcasses on the sea floor support a huge amount of life. At literally every level of the oceanic food chain they have a degree of impact. Not only that but their populations are still recovering from the last two centuries when whaling was more widespread - they aren't like fish or bugs they are huge and their populations take ages to recover. Not only that but because of their longevity and size their meat often contains waaaaay too much mercury for safe consumption.
>>1975
>>1967
http://us.whales.org/issues/whaling-in-iceland
>In 2015 Icelandic whalers killed some 155 fin whales and 29 minke whales.
>In 2014 Icelandic whalers killed 137 endangered fin whales as well as 24 minkes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale
>In 2012, the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission agreed upon a population estimate of 515,000 for the Antarctic minke stock. The Scientific Committee acknowledged that this estimate is subject to a negative bias because some minke whales would have been outside the surveyable ice edge boundaries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_whale
>Global population estimates range from less than 100,000 to roughly 119,000.
>The species is also hunted by Greenlanders under the IWC's Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling provisions.
https://iwc.int/catches
>West Greenland fin whales (taken by Greenlanders) - An annual strike limit of 19 whales is allowed for the years 2015 - 2018.
>West Greenland common minke whales (taken by Greenlanders) - An annual strike limit of 164 whales is allowed for the years 2015 - 2018 with an annual review by the Scientific Committee. Any unused quota can be carried forwards so long as no more than 15 strikes are added to the quota for any one year.
Over the past two years:
515,000 minke whales
- 382 killed (Iceland and Greenland combined in 2014 and 2015)
100,000 fin whales
- 330 killed (Iceland and Greenland combined in 2014 and 2015)
Fin Whale reproduction rate:
once every 2-3 years
Assuming that half of fin whales are female, and half of females are able to bear young, and each year a third of fertile whales produce young, that is approximately 8000 fin whale calves born yearly, 24 times the fin whale catch of both Iceland and Greenland over the course of 2 years. Minke are even more prolific.
Should we really be concerned about Icelandic and Greenlandic whaling?
>>1967
preach it bro
>mfw weaboos defending japan's whaling
just sickening
>>2021
>>1975
>>1967
http://us.whales.org/issues/whaling-in-japan
>During the 2013-14 season, Japan took 251 minke whales in the Antarctic.
>In the 2012-2013 Antarctic season Japan killed a reported 103 minke whales.
>In 2011/2012 Japan killed some 445 whales in total.
>This figure includes 297 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales, 2 fin whales, 95 sei whales and one sperm whale.
>In 2010/2011 Japan also killed some 445 whales.
>This figure includes the 2010 hunts in the open ocean of the North Pacific where 3 sperm whales, 100 sei whales, 50 Bryde's and 14 minke whales were killed, whilst in the coastal hunt in the North Pacific, 105 minke whales were killed.
>In Antarctica (between December 2010 and February 2011), the Japanese fleet killed 2 fin whales and 171 minke whales.
So between 2010 and 2014:
941 minke whales (out of 515,000)
195 sei whales (out of 80,000)
100 Bryde's whales (out of 90,000)
4 sperm whales (out of hundreds of thousands)
4 fin whales (out of 100,000)
I agree that controls need to be in place (which they are) and that the widescale whaling of the 20th century was disgusting. But the current whaling efforts are absolutely minuscule.
>Anonymous
What a joke.
>Anonymous
Fucking lol
>>2031
>>2009
>Current whaling efforts are miniscule.
Just need to make sure that it stays that way. Someone needs to keep the whalers honest. If anti-whaling activists are the only mechanism by which that can be achieved, so be it. We cannot allow whale hunting to return to the extreme levels reached last century. It is absolutely insane how many whales were killed. Not to mention that whale hunting is not particularly humane, just due to the nature of the process.
>>2031
Compared to pre whaling levels their populations are still tiny.
>japan literally ignoring science and just fishing until they extinct
max peak lel
>>2478
Science Jews fear the samurai.
>>2481
There's a report on youtube detailing that the Japanese are actually descendants of Jews.
Their simple writing systems (katakana and hiragana) are very similar to the Jewish writing system. They still share a number of words. And there's even cultural overlaps.
>>2500
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhlkuGwEecY
>>2505
uhuh
>>2481
>Science Jews