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To: Fangorn who wrote (68976)	10/4/1998 1:38:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Steven, I see you are in a feisty mood. Destruction of ecosystems is a serious problem, and using traditions to justify those actions is just plain wrong-headed. When the Makah hunted whales for food in the 19th century they did not enjoy medicines and the fruits of modern agriculture and technology which lead to longer lives and reduced infant mortality. Continuation of whaling activities would have lead to the ultimate extinction of whales. While a whale may not be important to you, they are important to me. I think it is high time that people began to learn to live within the context of the worlds, which means they must accept being part of ecosystems, not apart from them. Hunting is a prime example of an ecologically destructive activity. Killing predators such as wolves lead to population explosions of deer and other prey animals, which in turn lead to the destruction of forests because the deer population ran out of forage. Which in turn lead to the decimation of the forests. Which is used in turn to justify more deer hunting. Man is the only animal I know of that considers killing recreational. It is one thing when you are talking about hunting as a necessity for food. It is quite another when you are talking about it as a sport. Killing for fun is not what I consider a humane activity. I never claimed that the tribe's hunt was in and of itself ecologically destructive. What I did claim was that it is an abomination. Your claim that They quit hunting whales because they couldn't be true to their spiritual heritage by hunting an endangered species. is simply untrue. The last whale they took was in 1940, and they gave up whaling for economic and safety reasons. It was an extremely dangerous business, and modern agriculture had provided them with much more reliable sources of meat. You are correct, of course when you point out that a carrot is every bit as alive as a whale. The difference is that carrots are cultivated, and gathering of carrots in no way endangers any ecosystem. The same is true of cattle and chickens. But look at what happened in parts of the world when ecosystems are tampered with, either by the introduction of foreign organisms or the elimination of native animals. Killing to survive is one thing. Killing for sport is quite another. TTFN, CTC