Whale Wars

[Swamprider]

Home early today and came across Whale Wars on cable. Before I left Virgina animal rights activists were targeting fisherman as the Bay Bridge tunnel and throwing blood on them from the bridge. I wonder how long before animal rights groups adopt these same small boat tactics against sports fisherman here in the US.

[Chief1600]

They're here,

http://fishinghurts.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A couple of years ago my son and I were fishing in the the GSM park in Tennessee. This "lady" came up to us, very agitated that we were going to hurt "her" fish that she had been feeding (violation of federal law in the park). She didn't want to hear about C&R or the fact that she was interfering with properly licensed sportsman or anything else. She then began throwing rocks into the river to scare off the fish in the area (another violation of federal law in the park). At that point we informed her we would be returning with a ranger to resolve the matter. She and her boyfriend couldn't leave quick enough!

[1okbyme2]

Jeeze chief, I just went to that site ......what a crock

[DoubleM]

Most people suck which one of the reasons I got into kayaking, to get away from them!

Now that PetaTV is scary stuff

[Rik]

Not defending the actions of either side but the 'whale wars' thing is a legal issue. It isn't necessarily a PETA thing. The whales caught for 'research' end up in markets, not labs. Plus, they've been aggregating quotas. I. E. You and I fish together in separate boats you catch and keep 2 reds because I didn't catch any.

It's as much a political issue as it is an legal issue. With the tactics they use, I'm surprised that no ones been killed.

[Redman0421]

Whaling may be wrong, but these lunatics should be able to draw a line between save the whales and potentially hurting other human beings. Tis' revolting.

[Rik]

Regrettably, this world needs people like Paul Watson. If people like him weren't around, we wouldn't have any whales left. The animals and fish have become political fodder. The nations all stand up at the UN and proclaim how they will defend them and even sign nicely worded documents - "treaties" - in front of the cameras. Then they turn their backs and ignore the violations.

Frankly, I think he is one of a few that actually has the balls to do something about it. However, it never should have gotten to that point.

Let's look at the idle zones along the south shore. How many times have we seen a guy running at speed, throwing up sea grass chunks and digging a trench in there? We all condemn the guy, some talk about casting 5 ounce lead chunks, we all shout that there should be better enforcement. In other words, we jump up and down, stomp our feet and shout but the guy is still back out there the next day doing the same thing.

If someone were to take the Paul Watson approach out there, the news would get involved, enforcement would get involved, people with courage (though much less than his) would get behind him and the issue would get a lot of attention. Hell, it may just stop.

I'm not advocating it but there are people whose limit of tolerance for ignoring enforcement has a much shorter fuse than most of us. Some of these guys do the rest of us all a favor whether we want to admit it or not.

Right now, I wish there'd been a "Paul Watson" guy watching what was going on with the oil rigs.

[Evan]

The whole point of such actions is to get people talking about the issue at hand. Looks like it's working.