Korea is Okay with Whaling Again

wow, just when I thought Korea was entering the modern world.

Yup, Korea will officially sanction whaling for "scientific research" (same bullshit excuse that the Japanese use). Officially hunting whale is banned in Korea but if a whale is caught or hit by mistake the meat can be sold. When I lived in Ulsan there was a whale meat restaurant. I guess whales are rather hard to avoid, and really, any old net will snag them. How incompetent must Korean fishermen be? Well because any Korean I met there was actually quite honest about the fact that whales were intentionally taken (oops, didn't mean to alter course to ram that whale) and sold for consumption, but many felt that it was fishermen taking advantage of a well intentioned law rather than state sanctioned whaling. Now we know better.

The arguments are equally ridiculous:

"whales eat all the fish"
-most species don't eat fish, or certainly don't hunt them.

"it's for scientific research"
-the one the Japanese use. How come other nations can do research without killing these animals? What specifically are you trying to learn? Where can I find published information documenting the results of this research?

"it's part of our history"
- good point, here are some other things that are a part of Korean history: being owned by Japan, being owned by China, being owned by Mongolia, slavery, feudal monarchs, military dictatorship, having an economy smaller than Cambodia's. Yes, lets keep the past alive. BANZAI! Also, Koreans of 8000 years ago were using rowboats and throwing spears at the whales. I assume modern Korean whalers will keep that tradition alive as well?


Shameful.