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Old 1st-May-2008, 11:08 PM
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Karl Karl is offline
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Apart from the barbaric aspects of the slaughter of these cetaceans (with large numbers of happy spectators) in the Faroe Islands, there is other environmental aspect related to the pollution.

If you look at the video, vast quantities of blood are flowing back into the sea, uncontrolled and untreated. That is very likely to adversely affect the ecology of these waters, since it is unnatural for such large amounts of nutrients to be released - it is very likely that this will overwhelm the natural thresholds of nutrients that the waters can assimilate; especially considering the fact that it would take much longer for the nutrients to decompose in the colder water.

I was recently reading somewhere else that these waters have some of the best developed "cold-water corals" habitats. I am not an expert on cold-water corals, but if they are anything like warm-water coral reefs, then the huge quantities of nutrients would not be healthy for the ecosystem.

As barbarous and savage as this video may appear to the average viewer, if the "controlled" hunting of these endangered species of whales and dolphins is to be permitted in Scandinavia for "cultural" reasons, then at the very least, some sort of legislation and greater control of the pollution and other environmental impacts needs to be implemented, with better enforcement.
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