[SeaGypsy]

Lots of anecdotal stuuf and a few small clinical trials:

http://animals.about.com/b/2005/11/24/s ... ession.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4465998.stm

http://www.researchautism.net/intervent ... ikml?ra=64

http://www.planetpuna.com/dp.htm

If I cared what people think about what i think, heck! I wouldn't believe in peakoil!!!

[Quagmire]

.
Here's someone who believes:
Gregory Colbert is one of the world's foremost freedivers, among other things.
He has included footage of himself 'dancing' with a whale in the documentary film he made called "Ashes and Snow". It is beautiful to see.
http://www.ashesandsnow.com
The whole film documents man's relations to various animals (whales, cheetahs, elephants) on the animals terms and turf.
To say that it is moving is an understatement. It speaks to something deep and primal and holy.
.

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'L')ots of anecdotal stuuf and a few small clinical trials:

http://animals.about.com/b/2005/11/24/s ... ession.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4465998.stm

http://www.researchautism.net/intervent ... ikml?ra=64

http://www.planetpuna.com/dp.htm

If I cared what people think about what i think, heck! I wouldn't believe in peakoil!!!

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quagmire', '.')
Here's someone who believes:
Gregory Colbert is one of the world's foremost freedivers, among other things.
He has included footage of himself 'dancing' with a whale in the documentary film he made called "Ashes and Snow". It is beautiful to see.
http://www.ashesandsnow.com
The whole film documents man's relations to various animals (whales, cheetahs, elephants) on the animals terms and turf.
To say that it is moving is an understatement. It speaks to something deep and primal and holy.
.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mcgowanjm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quagmire', '.')
Here's someone who believes:
Gregory Colbert is one of the world's foremost freedivers, among other things.
He has included footage of himself 'dancing' with a whale in the documentary film he made called "Ashes and Snow". It is beautiful to see.
http://www.ashesandsnow.com
The whole film documents man's relations to various animals (whales, cheetahs, elephants) on the animals terms and turf.
To say that it is moving is an understatement. It speaks to something deep and primal and holy.
.

[Pretorian]

I once found a body of a baby dolphin on an abandoned beach sometime ago, it was pretty sad. Nearby was one of the biggest steel-melting plants on the planet. I remember, when I was 2, the sea turned red overnight and there are were loads of still alive fish and shrimp right on the surface of the water, trying to grasp some air. Everyone was running around grabbing as much as they could, including myself and my family.

[SeaGypsy]

In 1974 116 humpbacks beached themselves at Gunnamatta beach in Victoria, Australia. Back then there was no such thing as rescuing beached whales, they all died over the next 2 days. My father went off his nut at some teenagers who were sitting on one whales back using it's blowhole as an ashtray as it was dieing. It was surreal. Eventually the bodies were all scraped up and buried in a pit with a bulldozer.
In New Zealand, the Maori people prized the bones for making jewelery, scrimshaw type bonecarving. A single beaching like this would supply the bone for carvers for many decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beached_whale

Can't find a comprehensive list of beachings; sorry.

[Quagmire]

.
Proving that underwater sonar is tortuous to ocean dwellers is kind of like trying to prove that animals have souls. Hard to get a handle on method / criteria etc. But since whales use their voices to communicate with each other over thousand mile distances, and in turn are listening for answers to these vital songs, how can we not assume that Naval sonar is a major irritant?

Imagine trying to live your life with a constant background noise of a radio station you absolutely despise. The noise follows you everywhere. You cannot turn it off. You cannot go into a room, put on headphones and shut the door. How long would it be before you went totally batshit insane from it? For me it would take maybe a couple of hours.

And don't use the 'I'm anthropomorphising' argument here. We're all animals. We're all wired to be happy functioning creatures in the environment in which we evolved. Whales evolved in an ocean where every sound held meaning. We have desecrated the whales sacred sonic realm of the ocean with sonar.
.

[SeaGypsy]

Excellent point quagmire and well put.I wonder if cetaceans become desensitised the way humans do? For many years I lived alone in a swamp forest in a teepee, then for several more on a series of houseboats I built. I couldn't stand vehicle noise or crappy music. I also found my thinking slowed to a point where almost everyone seemed 'head busy' or preoccupied with meaningless selfish thought, oblivious to the world around them. It took a major and deliberate effort to push myself back into social life, to 'handle reality'. Remarkably it did work to a point where I now enjoy Asia's buzz and insanity as well as remote Australia's peace and quiet. If I can make this adjustment I wonder if the cetaceans have had to do a similar thing?

[JJ]

The Busy Little Japanese Kiwi Office of Absurd Propaganda
http://www.paulwatson.com/news-and-medi ... 108-1.html

[SeaGypsy]

Paul Watson..... To describe what I would like to do to him would violate the CoC.

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'P')aul Watson..... To describe what I would like to do to him would violate the CoC.

[SeaGypsy]

Ummm? Besides the obvious to whom? The guy is just a blatent sellout stooge. I hate him. Is that OK?

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'U')mmm? Besides the obvious to whom? The guy is just a blatent sellout stooge. I hate him. Is that OK?

[yeahbut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')apan's whaling fleet has revealed how much anti-whaling activists disrupted the annual hunt off Antarctica.

The ships have returned to port with just over half as many whales - 507 - as they had set out to catch.

Whalers said they were angry, and blamed what they described as "violent interference" from the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

[Gerben]

They should sink the terrorists. Before you know it those 'activists' disrupting me slaughtering a head of luttice.

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yeahbut', '
')I seem to remember some here struggling to understand why the activists were pursuing their anti-whaling endeavours when they had no impact and the whalers weren't bothered.
Well, there is an impact, and they are bothered alright- as I said at the time, to no apparent avail, the activists hit the whalers right where it hurts- in the wallet

And, of course, they've saved quite a few whales from the harpoon.

I look forward to an even less successful season for the Japanese next year, and once more it will probably be up to the activists, not the IWC, to achieve that.

[Fishman]

Well written Short. If the whale harvest drops, the Japs might not get out, then I would miss those hillarious shows of the Sea Sheperd folks acting like total dorks.