British whaling history - a disgrace?

I saw most of it - had the iPad to watch over the really bad bits. I thought it was produced very well - factual and fairly non-judgemental. The shots of the processing and blokes wading through heaps of meat was unbelievable. I had no idea of the scale of it all - or the products whale oil was used in. My mum certainly wouldn't have given me margarine if she'd known!

I've still got to watch it.

Whales are certainly huge and rather lovely creatures, I suppose the whalers told themselves they were just big fish. It is strange though, what animals we want to preserve at the expense, sometimes of others.

Did anyone else watch the programme?
I was just amazed by the fact that it all took place on a remote island in the Antarctic, South Georgia, which is so far away from anywhere else.
All the factory buildings are still there and rusting away. Nicolson was not allowed into some of the buildings without a mask because of all the asbestos, etc.
Some of the scientists were horrified to see film of what had happened there. They had never imagined the scale of the slaughter.

I did not watch the programme and am not sure who the target market is/was for the whale meat and products.

I have mixed feelings about all this. We strive to preserve some species at the expense of others; indeed we kill some species to provide food for those we are trying to preserve. There is no real logic.

The world is predicated on kill or be killed and survival of the fittest and that is how it is. Can't say I'm wild about it, but that is what it is.

Communities have to survive; and whaling was no doubt one way that some communities did this. They would not appreciate our sentimentality.

It is such a vexed question and one to which I have no answer. But I often watch programmes about attempts to preserve one species or another and wonder who decides which should live and which should die out. It is an inevitable consequence of predators and predated that some species die out.

The killing of animals is vile - but that is how the world goes. Every beautiful pastoral view is full of creatures large and small savaging each other to death - every beautiful house martin wheeling about is hoovering up insects by the dozen.

Thank you papaoscar - I might start googling phrases that strike me as very good to see if they are original or recycled

Say what you like, HollyDaze, we're all equal here!

Many thanks thatbags, I do feel I am somewhat lagging in the literary skills!

hollyd, don't you dare slink off. Pedantry can be ignored and sometimes it should be.

But if the full attribution and context is added to every quote, there are cries of "should be in Pedants corner!" or "get a life!". Where do you draw the line?

Should every mention of "To be or not to be?" be labelled "Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1, William Shakespeare" ?

I thought it well enough known (and I was right) for people not to assume it was my own.

I shall slink off to the corner and wear the conical shaped hat (with a big D on it) for a while

Yes, it was a quote. I thought it well enough known (and I was right) for people not to assume it was my own. And Ana, you are right, I didn't bother to check it out before I typed it.

The quote from 'The Go-Between' is actually 'The past is a foreign country...'.

[signed A. Pedant]

Isn't that the quote from 'The Go-between' FlicketyB?Yes, it is very apt indeed.

The past is another country, they do things differently there.

Very well put.

Many countries were involved in the whaling industry. It was perfectly acceptable at the time. It may offend modern sensibilities but that is how life develops.

I am more than willing to regret past actions when they were abhorrent by the standards of the time they happened but, just think about what we do now that people in a hundred years time will greet with abhorrence - and they wont be the things we already think abhorrent, they bwill be the things we find totally acceptable and banal like shopping in supermarkets for example.

The past is another country, they do things differently there.

As Tegan says, they are such huge animals that they take ages to die, very cruel.However, for us, whaling is firmly in the past.Lots of things in the past that we now consider cruel; wife beating, dog fighting, bear baiting, cock fighting etc.Apart from the bear baiting of course, the other things do go on still, but furtively and not publicly, and can be prosecuted.We can't always look at things with 21st century eyes.Killing millions of buffalo in North America was considered sensible at the time.I don't think Japan cares [or China] what the world thinks of it for killing so many whales and sharks.I won't be watching this programme.

I don't think an orca has ever killed a human except when they're in captivity [something as barbaric as whaling imo]. The problem with whales, in the light of what we now know about them, is how tight knit their groups and family bonds are and how hard it is for them emotionally when one of them number is killed. And, unlike most animals/fish slaughtered for food or their hide it takes them a long time to die;there isn't the instant zap given at the slaughterhouse. The Japanese must struggle food wise [doubt if they have much arable land?] and they have always been a fishing nation. It's easy these days to come down heavy on people for doing so when we can import food from anywhere in the world, but it hasn't always been like that and you have to eat what you can get. Mind you, I still haven't watched the programme ; I fell asleep.It'll have to be iplayer.

Bears, polar and grizzly for instance, are 'above' us on the food chain. They love a bit of man meat when they can get it. Some sharks, and orcas too, I expect. Just saying.

I have no objection to people of the far north, who have traditionally eaten whale meat, carrying on doing so. It has also been a central part of Japanese tradition. I think it is slowly dying out as other foods become more readily available, just as whaling died out here when our society no longer needed whale oil.

Do you know something about me that I don't, Aka?

I'm afraid I watched the David Beckham programme but will try to watch the whale programme at 3 if I stay awake. If not I'll watch it on iplayer.

Though I agree it's a vile trade.

And don't try to continue my thinking ... You're not up to it!

I never mentioned food chains, so no idea what you're on about. But then that's nothing new