December 11, 2022

"They’re surprisingly flexible animals, and they twist and turn and their flukes get entangled. The lobster lines can then tighten..."

"... around their caudal peduncle – the tail stock – causing it to necrotise... a horrible slow death...."

Says Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan," quoted in "Save whales or eat lobster? The battle reaches the White House/Fishing gear used by Maine lobstermen is killing right whales. Will boosting a $1bn industry trump protecting an endangered species?" (The Guardian)(The White House served lobster at a recent state dinner).

In his effort to stir up an appreciation for whales that outstrips our taste for lobster, Hoare stresses their "very long sessions of foreplay of three or four hours." 

Males possess the biggest testes of any animal on the planet, and the mating often involves several males and a single female – a “socially active group” in scientific terms. “You see them rolling around in shallow water in a very sensual way, stroking each other with their flippers. There are a lot of animals involved, and it’s clearly erotic. They seem so caught up in the moment.”

When you think about how far you would go sacrificing your own interests for the sake of saving an animal from suffering and needless death, how much are you counting their sexual performance? What counts more — the size of their testicles, the amount of time devoted to insuring that the female has an orgasm, or the extent to which they seem to be having what the humans call "fun"?

35 comments:

gilbar said...

i'm supposed to give up lobster?
So a bunch of perverted bisexual whales can have their perverted bisexual whale orgies?
NOPE! Not gonna happen

farmgirl said...

Do you think the tangential information says more about the author than the entire point of the story?
Totally rhetorical;0)

Biff said...

1) It would have been interesting to hear more about alternative methods for harvesting lobsters than just a throwaway line at the end of the article. It also would have been nice for The Guardian to get some comments from the lobstermen, rather than spending so much time dwelling on Hoare's testicular fixation.

2) Reading the popular press, one might wonder if anything bad happens without being directly caused or worsened by climate change.

gilbar said...

The Fact of the matter IS: America NEEDS oil
And those perverted bisexual whales, are FULL of oil. CO2 free oil!

Temujin said...

Look- I gotta go with the guys with huge balls and the gal who likes them all. We may not approve because of our human upbringing, but you gotta hand it to them. 'Me Too' in the whale world takes on a whole new meaning.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

One highlight from David Attenborough's nature docs. He's on a fairly small boat, the water a bit choppy, wind blowing his hair and (one would think) affecting the sound (which may be fixed later in a studio). He is watching huge whales breach, amazing close-ups and all that. "The blue whale" (shifting his position, trying to straighten his hair, shouting) "has a penis that is ten feet long!"

Also a book on dogs, I think a famous author but I forget who. Very few humans actually watch dogs having sex. Domestic dogs are often neutered, or don't get the opportunity. Breeding as with cows and pigs can be by artificial insemination. So what actually happens in nature? There are three stages, very visible in the way the female and male react to each other. At the second stage the male ceases to find any pleasure in what is going on, and tries to withdraw. The female's body grips him at this point, preventing withdrawal, and it is the third stage that actually gets the female pregnant. Please, no bad jokes about trying to get a bro to get married and stay married.

tim maguire said...

When judging how advanced (and important to us) a species is, it nelps to show they are like us. Funny that they are trying to suggest whales are valuable because they care about the female’s needs—they are proper feminists. Lefties worthy of our concern.

But no, the only things I’ll really care about are, if they’re threatened, how important are they to the ecosystem, and is there a reasonable way to avoid killing them and/or reduce their suffering.

Bob Boyd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
iowan2 said...

I have no idea concerning the facts surrounding lobsters, and whales.

I do know environmentalist have been lying about the environment since before Rachel Carlson. So I call BS on all of this. Its not about whales, its about capitalism. My instinct informs me that there exists greater threats to whale numbers, but none of them have an engaging villain.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Jeebus after all this "Save The Whales" screeching through the years, we get whale porn? Trust the science!

boatbuilder said...

I am skeptical. It appears that the right whale population has always been pretty small (since hunting them has more or less ended)--according to the very brief internet research I did (yeah, yeah, it's the internet, so who knows) 400 to 500 whales total since the 70's. It seems like if lobster lines are the big problem the whales would either have been wiped out completely, or have rebounded to some higher total number of whales. It seems unlikely that the population would remain relatively stable at this very small level unless that is, indeed, the stable population.

I have no doubt that some whales do get caught in fishing gear, and that this has been happening for a long time. But I am skeptical that it is what is keeping the whale population stable at such a low number.

Also apparently the North Pacific Right Whale population is even smaller than the North Atlantic. Not because of lobstering. (there are apparently lots of Southern Right Whales).

So perhaps before we cripple the already struggling lobster industry we take a harder look at things.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

You'd think this was an easy call for the left.

Nope - they lose their lobster.

Rusty said...

Can we eat the whales now? Not a big lobster fan.

John henry said...

Nuke the whales!

John Henry

Bob Boyd said...

A whale with a sore tail will tend to coddle his peduncle...is what I was told...by this guy I know...who's like, into whales and shit...okay, I just made that up, but it makes sense, right?

Wince said...

My thought: couldn't you attach a GPS device to the lobster trap line so that you could track the location of the entangled whale to release them?

Iman said...

WTF

Big Mike said...

One whale — pictured trapped in ropes that are nowhere near her tail flukes — is not evidence that supports the thesis that lobster fishing is killing right whales. Where is the evidence that lobster fishing endangers, right whales but apparently not other other species of baleen whiles like the grey or the blue of humpbacks? Lots of “can” but no real evidence that it really does happen.

Just more fake news for the gullible.

ballpeenX said...

I'm skeptical. How many right whales have been killed by lobster trap lines? Is there any actual data to support this? We've been lied to "environmentalists" for decades. It began in the late 60's with Paul Erlich and the "Population Bomb". I just don't believe any of it anymore.

Stephen said...

Earlier this week the WSJ wrote about tech solutions to the problem:

Endangered Whales Get Lifeline From High-Tech Lobster Traps

Aggie said...

Show me where it happened. You know, that thing called proof, which used to be a requirement.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

What counts more? The squeaky clean record the Maine lobster fishermen have regarding whales, NONE of which has died from lobster line entanglement. Why does the USA now prefer punishing innocent Americans instead of the foreigners who actually seek out and kill whales? It’s the same as their approach to reducing carbon or gun crime: punishing the innocent and letting criminals go free. I despise our government’s push to create chaos everywhere at once. It is highly dangerous.

Bob Boyd said...

Wokeism is a lobster line tightening around America's caudle peduncle.

JAORE said...

Just like the poor old Polar Bear dying due to global warming.... or not.

But, to be prudent, we should only allow lobsters to be harvested in numbers sufficient for Democrat galas.

Joe Smith said...

'So a bunch of perverted bisexual whales can have their perverted bisexual whale orgies?'

Sounds like a whale of a gangbang.

Nuke the unborn gay whales!

M said...

Being forced to read about the sex lives of animals in a way clearly meant to make me identify with their erotism versus a detached scientific way makes me withdraw them and therefore care less about them. Once again leftists make what is normal and natural in its own right disgusting and repellent by inserting themselves and their perversions into it.

Paddy O said...

They should be renamed MAGA whales

Paddy O said...

Heaven help us if dolphins get in trouble, no one should have to hear what they get up to.

MikeD said...

I non-Google searched for "whale mortality in Maine's coastal waters" & everything was either gubmint supporting the ban or crazy &/or ill-educated environazi's (tnx Rush) press releases.

Lurker21 said...

It would be real news if lobsters had the largest testes of any animal on the planet.

Otherwise, ho-hum.

Joe Smith said...

'It would be real news if lobsters had the largest testes of any animal on the planet.'

Nancy Pelosi has the biggest balls on the planet.

Speaking of bisexuality and balls, what's he deal with Paul Hammer?

Seems to have been conveniently buried...

gilbar said...

MikeD said...
searched for "whale mortality in Maine's coastal waters" & everything was either gubmint supporting the ban or crazy &/or ill-educated environazi's

this is fun!
Here's noaa's Webpage https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-life-distress/2017-2022-north-atlantic-right-whale-unusual-mortality-event
from their site, lede reads
Beginning in 2017, elevated mortalities in North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) were documented in Canada and the United States and necessitated an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) be declared.

SO! SINCE 2017 things are TERRIBLE!!! AND GETTING WORSE!!
But, as Al Smith would say; Let's take a look.. At the record.
From THAT site's data, we find that:

entanglement mortalities in 2017 were 4
entanglement mortalities in 2018 were 3
entanglement mortalities in 2019 were 1
entanglement mortalities in 2020 were ZERO!
entanglement mortalities in 2021 were 1
entanglement mortalities in 2022 were ZERO!
So, in the last five years, entanglement mortalities have fallen, from 4 down to 0. There were Nine Total in those five years, and SEVEN were in the 1st two.

But Wait! What about Serious Injuries? I'll bet THOSE have SKYROCKETED?
entanglement injuries in 2017 were 12 (2 serious)
entanglement injuries in 2018 were 13 (5 serious)
entanglement injuries in 2019 were 7 (1 serious)
entanglement injuries in 2020 were 6 (3 serious)
entanglement injuries in 2021 were 5 (4 serious)
entanglement injuries in 2022 were 4 (4 serious)
See the trend? I think *I* do. Are there any data scientists that can help out?
What IS the 5 year trend? Should we be putting out MORE lobster traps?

gilbar said...

remember.
That data came from the US GOVERNMENT NOAA, the people that are SAYING, that there is a problem.
Read The Data! BELIEVE THE DATA!!

Lance said...

How many right whales do China and Russia take each year? Do they follow the international agreements?

n.n said...

Aren't fauna "wham, bam, here comes baby?" Humans are a queer fringe in their sexual constructs.