最近、捕鯨について長めのものを書こうと思い、いろいろと下調べをしています。
イルカ、クジラに何か関連した話はないかなあと思ってたところ、バンバリーのそばにオーストラリアの捕鯨の最終基地があることが分かったからです。
捕鯨は実に奥の深い問題です。政治や文化が激しく絡み、これほど西洋人と日本人が必ず対立するネタはないのかもしれません。
「日本人は、なぜクジラを捕るんだ？全くひどいやつらだ。絶滅してしまいそうなのに。それにあんなに賢い動物を。」
「これは日本の食文化だ。減らない程度に捕ることがどうしていけない？」
簡単にいうとこんな対立になるわけです。そこに政治、文化、科学が絡み、クジラはその題材にされているだけ、といえなくもないような展開になっています。こないだもイギリス人二人と、スウェーデン人とぼくたち二人と激論になりました。英語のせいもあり、なんとなくぼくらがいいくるめられてしまったのは残念でしたが…。
ぼくは別に捕鯨バンザイというわけではないんですが、どうしても西洋人たちのいう理屈に納得ができず、クジラを捕ったっていいではないかという気になってしまうのです。
ところで、オーストラリアは1978年に捕鯨をやめて、それから反捕鯨国となったようです。英語系の国の中ではオーストラリアが最も最近までクジラを捕っていたとのことです。その中でさらに最後の最後まで捕鯨をしていた場所が、ここバンバリーから南に２００キロぐらい行ったアルバニーというところなのです。
最後の最後までクジラを捕り続けてきた（英語系の）西洋人たちに、アルバニーで話を聞きたいと思っています。彼らの生き様が今、少々気になっているわけです。
またまた思いつきの更新になってしまいました。あ、生活のこと、書くの忘れてました。今度は二人で更新しないと……。
ちなみに、2週間ほど前、初めてこっちで髪を切りました。すいてくれ、というのが伝わるか不安でしたが、一応伝わり、まあまあの出来でした。しかし切り終わったあと、まるで流さずそのまま整髪料をつけて終了。当然のことながら、髪が服の中に入る入る。ちくちくしました。
ではまた。
最近全然イルカ来ません。ボランティアが暇です。
雄生
捕鯨関連の記事が、NYtimesの社説に載っていたので参考まで。これに対して読者からのコメントも載ってたけど、アメリカ人は、かなり感情的でアホな反応をしてました。捕鯨量を制限している限り、捕鯨の何が問題なのでしょうかね。
Whale on the Table
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
AKTOVIK, Alaska -- You've heard about the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet, the Dean Ornish diet, the Zone. Well, based on my research here in the Arctic, let me present to you the one approach that is guaranteed to help you lose 10 pounds a week or your money back!
[Note: to apply for a refund, you must send a notarized receipt showing that you purchased this day's newspaper in Kaktovik, as well as "before" and "after" swimsuit photos of yourself, suitable for publication.]
I'm talking about the Eskimo diet, the traditional one. Even the portliest New Yorkers will slim rapidly if they eat nothing but whale blubber, caribou meat and anything else that they personally harpoon or hunt down.
I had this brainstorm for a new best seller to cash in on the diet craze the day the Inupiat Eskimos here in Kaktovik brought in their first whale of the season. Each year they have the right to harpoon three whales for their own subsistence diet, and the town was giddy with celebration.
The school closed, the shops closed, and even the U.S. post office took a break so the whole population of 270 could assemble on the beach under a gently falling snow to hug and cheer as the victorious whalers brought in the supply of winter meat and blubber. (An audio slide show of the event is available here.)
The elders spoke the Inupiat language, while the kids were more hip. One girl stared at the 43-foot-long bowhead whale and shouted, "Hey, man, that's heavy!"
Two bulldozers hauled the whale onto the beach (after breaking the two-inch-thick rope, twice). Children danced on top of the whale, and then the adults began carving it up, with one man dispatched to shoot his rifle periodically to ward off the polar bears that were circling the beach hungrily. The first "muktuk," or bits of skin and blubber, were rushed into a pot, then passed around to all.
"It's good with ketchup or A-1 Steak Sauce," one man explained, offering those condiments as well. The local people had handfuls of the muktuk; I tried it and found it pretty awful. That's a major reason the Eskimo diet will trim those waistlines.
That scene unfolded because, for all its "save the whales" piety in international forums, the United States has strongly and quite properly backed the right of American Indians and Eskimos to kill whales the way they traditionally have. Natives in places like Kaktovik depend on the whale meat, and harpooning whales is an essential part of their culture.
It's true that the U.S. government lists the bowhead whale as endangered, but the population appears to have recovered to a still modest 10,000. The tiny numbers taken by the natives keep their way of life intact without threatening the species.
Still, I can't help detecting a whiff of American hypocrisy here. If we insist on the right of Native Americans to kill whales listed as endangered, then how can we so vociferously oppose the hunting of much more populous species of whales by Norwegians, Icelanders and Japanese, who also have whale hunting as part of their traditional cultures?
Some whale species, like the blue, are truly endangered and should never be hunted. But there are hundreds of thousands of minke whales, perhaps as many as a million, and they don't seem in any jeopardy. So the ban on hunting minke whales can no longer be easily justified on the basis of saving the species. It is now possible both to save the whales and to kill them.
The remaining argument against whaling is an ethical one: whales are highly developed mammals, and it is immoral to prey upon them. That's a fine reason to spurn whale sushi oneself, but a lousy reason to prevent the Japanese from partaking. Otherwise, Hindus could try to prohibit our burger addiction.
Granted, there are lots more Norwegians and Japanese than Inupiat Eskimos, the Japanese "scientific" whaling effort is more about sushi than science, and none of us want to put whale populations in danger. One solution would be to keep the moratorium on large-scale commercial whaling in the open ocean, but to let any traditional whaling people (including the Japanese and Norwegians) harvest sustainable numbers of whales within 200 miles of shore.
Sure, whales are magnificent. But so are dogs, which end up on dinner plates in Asia. By insisting on the rights of our own natives to pursue the Eskimo diet while denying similar rights to other whaling nations, I'm afraid we in the U.S. aren't taking the moral high ground ・we're just being hypocritical.
中井へ
記事の添付ありがとう。
これからゆっくり読んでみるよ。
おれもいろいろと資料を読んできたけど、科学的に制限された捕鯨量を守れば問題あるはずないよね。でも、こないだあるイギリス人と議論してたら、クジラの数が分からないのに何で制限量なんて決められるんだっていわれた。彼に言わせれば、野生の海洋生物の数なんてちゃんと数えられないから、勝手に数を推測して制限を決めて捕っては取り返しのつかないことになると。
しかし、そんなことを言い出したら切りがないよなあ。そのために統計学などがあるわけで、科学的な方法による推定量を根拠にすることは問題ないはず。じゃあ、エビや魚の数はちゃんと分かってるのか？って話にもなるしね。彼が、「魚の数はよく分からないから、おれは一切フィッシュ＆チップスは食べないんだ」ぐらいいえば、説得力もあったけど。
とはいえ、日本の捕鯨会社には、捕ったクジラの数をごまかしたりとか、そういう後ろめたいことがあったのも事実らしい。そういうことをされると確かに、科学的にどうこう、という言い分が通用しなくなるよね。
今度、捕鯨関係者に会えることになりそうだ。西洋社会最後の捕鯨野郎たちの生き様に興味アリです。
またね。ありがとう。
Posted by: こんどう（中井へ） at September 19, 2003 1:16 PMI like to eat canned whale meat. Oh, it’s delicous and get me energy. Why are they protecting whales while killing people all around the world? If you have time to protect whales, why not protect men and women and children in poor countries? Let’s save our species, our kind.
I recommend to send canned whale meat to poor countries where people are starving to death. It's nutritional and healthy. I strongly recommend to hunt whales to save poor countries where they are short of food. Send whales to Somalia, Africa, and North Korea. Why not?
Posted by: ChrisRedfield at April 16, 2009 12:54 AM＞ChrisRedfield
Hi Chris,
i'm not exactly sure who you are referring to by the word "they", "you".. By the way, i'm a Japanese, who is not against whaling at all as long as we keep the rule. Maybe you've just read an article above, but that's an editorial of NY times.
But well, i don't know whether we need to hunt whales for the sake of poor countries...