Disturbing, indeed. Hurting a possibly sentient and sapient creature on one hand, contributing to the decline of threatened shark populations on the other. I wish that post had contained more data and less gung-ho appeals to pathos, though; I'm inclined not to trust anyone who uses that many exclaimation marks or paints with that broad of a brush.
And now that I ponder a bit, I think his solutions are more or less crap. They seemed to be based on "MUST HAVE TUNA NO MATTER WHAT" and treating it as if we have to choose whether to protect dolphins and OR protect other fish, and there's no way to do both. Sure there is; stop fishing the goddamned tuna. I notice that solution didn't come up, although the fishers' livelyhood didn't look to be why; it seemed more like the blogger was concerned about his own tastes and appetites and didn't want to consider the idea of being deprived. Which gets a big boo fucking hoo from me.
Actually, it’s addressed to an extent in the comments. His answer, as I understand it, is twofold:
To an extent, it’s that the post is about the choice of how to get tuna rather than whether we should. Perhaps something like: If we assume that fisheries have enough clout that we can’t possibly ban tuna fishing, what would be the least harmful way of going about it?
He does indicate that he thinks that economic reality makes it impossible to stop tuna fishing altogether. It’s a very major fishery, and a lot of people around the world depend on it—many of whom are very poor and cannot afford to change their diets. To paraphrase him from some comment or other, he feels uncomfortable telling people at the brink of starvation that they can’t eat what they are eating.
Of course a lot of people eat tuna who don’t face such a problem, and encourage first-world people not to rely on seafood because fishing as a whole is not done in a sustainable fashion is a sentiment I agree with (even if I don’t always live up to the goal).
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Date: 2009-06-22 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-22 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-22 06:49 pm (UTC)Actually, it’s addressed to an extent in the comments. His answer, as I understand it, is twofold:
To an extent, it’s that the post is about the choice of how to get tuna rather than whether we should. Perhaps something like:
He does indicate that he thinks that economic reality makes it impossible to stop tuna fishing altogether. It’s a very major fishery, and a lot of people around the world depend on it—many of whom are very poor and cannot afford to change their diets. To paraphrase him from some comment or other, he feels uncomfortable telling people at the brink of starvation that they can’t eat what they are eating.
Of course a lot of people eat tuna who don’t face such a problem, and is a sentiment I agree with (even if I don’t always live up to the goal).