jan.vindheim@gmail.com (Jan  Bojer Vindheim) wrote:
>Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@barrow.com> wrote:
>
>>  There are about 3500 Inupiat people living
>> here in Barrow.  They are allocated 22 Bowhead whales per year.
>> They like to catch young whales about 40-45 feet in length,
>> which is about 80,000 pounds per whale.
>>
>> If that is only 50% food (I don't know what the actual
>> percentage is, and am trying to be conservative), that would be
>> 40,000 pounds of food per whale.
>
>I think 50% meat content is overstating it. Most of the carcass is
>blubber. Industrial whaling was done  more for the fat content  than for
>the meat.

But I didn't say "meat", I said *food*.  And while you folks in
Norway may not eat muktuk (I have no idea what Minke whale
muktuk is like, as compared to muktuk from a Bowhead, so there
might well be good reason not to like it), muktuk from a Bowhead
is a genuine delicacy!  Grey whale muktuk, for example, is
horrible!

The fact is that here probably well over 50% of a Bowhead is
used for food.  There is of course still some use for other
parts, such as the baleen, but today non-food parts are a
relatively small part of the used portion of a whale.

>Here in Norway large chemical factories, produced paint, margarine, lamp
>oil and other stuff  based on whale fat. Large commercial fortunes were
>amassed this way.

As long as it is used, whether for food or other useful
products, I have no problem with it.  Eating the meat and
rendering the blubber is acceptable, just as some parts of cows
(leather shoes), horses (glue) and pigs (footballs) are used for
other than food products... :-)

Of course, today none of those commercial uses is significant
anyway.  Last I heard you folks were selling parts of your
whales to Japan???  I have no problem with that either.

Of course, none of this makes sense to irrational people who
lose all perspective and equate whales to some romantic
emotional or mental lack that they feel...

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson           <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@barrow.com