International Whaling Commission condems Whales??

[Sidhe]

Anyway link it and then I can see what your talking about, because I can't see how the mercury gets into their bodies if they just pass the excess water out of their body? They only absorb the plankton AFAIK.

Oh don't nother your right, I looked it up it seems plankton absorb these compounds too, and thus so do whales. My bad.

Oops I meant to quote this bit but deleted most of it, this makes no sense whatsoever now nm.

 

[Nobody]

*points at eric* lol you just called yourself rediculas

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Metals are usually stored in the bony structure of the bodies i think, although whales have a mechanism that stores such toxic metals in their fat. All organisms should contain trace amount of metals, however because of their age and the amount of food they consume. top of the food chain animals usually manage to accumulate it in their body without suffering from serious health problems, although that said. they have found several pods of Orca whales suffering from diminished immune system with lethal amounts of toxins in their body.

It really depends on the chemical form of the metal. Ions will be incorporated in bones as these can enter the metabolism pathways of Ca and Mg.
The other case is if these metals are in some other form, the most prominent example are methylated mercury species (there are afaik 4). These compounds come into existance because some bacteria can gain energy by methylating mercury. These compounds are very hydrophobic and will therefore enter the body passively (contrary to ions which can be absorbed/blocked actively) and accumulate in fat tissue, they are also hardly excreted they don´t enter the bloodstream (except lots of this fat tissue is degraded). So these compunds will accumulate over a lifetime and the concentration will increase over the foodchain. The same is true for many hydrophobic contaminants (think of DDT).

However, on the issue: It seems like a cynical joke that whales are blamed for reduced amounts of fish available. Species with a few 1000 individuals will surely have more impact than 6 billion people
Without this ban whales would be doomed by now.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

If I had my way, any whaling vessel caught on the high seas would be sunk on sight.

 

[Sidhe]

I have a cheap Nautalus if your interested?

I fail to see the need for it too, I mean we dont use spermaceti any more, or whale fat or it's bones to make scrimshaw, in fact just the meat with the vast majority of it going to scientific research and from what I've been told by my grand parents it tastes like crap too. Probably an acquired taste like mustard gas.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

In my parallel universe, there are United Nations battleships on the high seas, with shoot to kill orders regarding whalers and drift net fishing fleets

 

[Erik Mesoy]

*points at eric* lol you just called yourself rediculas

You just demonstrated your complete inability both to understand an argument and to make a rebuttal.

 

[mrtn]

Japan and the scandanavian axis of evil .......

Stop killing kangaroos, bloody aussie.
Scandinavia don't hunt whales. Neither does eastern asia or any other neighboring group of countries.