A beautiful bird. And given the general tenor of the posts on this thread, the appropriate conservative position is to just kill them all. Why, I have no idea. But such is the state of modern conservatism.
Many of the comments on this thread that could be seen as reprehensible, if I'm interpreting things correctly, were simply meant to be humorous, not exactly serious. But then you know that, too, I'd guess?
The coarseness of commentary, I attribute as being part of the ongoing backlash to the extremist environmentalism that many of this nation's citizens so loudly promote.
Environmentalism of the form, repeatedly taken to such extremes, that it would seem we should all just stop breathing, since although our bodies are hosts to multitudes of living microbes, when we inhale, some newly arriving microbes get killed(!), oh, the horror of it all! We've changed nature! Something DIED!, followed by when we then exhale, among other things, CO,2 which has been recently & ridiculously(?!) recognized by the U.S. Supremes as a "pollutant".
The backlash to the often asinine positions of the enviros, [and the Supreme Court? heheh...] expresses itself in the responses, posted on threads like this one, here at FR.
Rereading the thread, it looked to me that at least a few of the comments were made tongue-in-cheek, though at first blush I can see how they might be misconstrued to appear as supporting whaling, although at the same time, there were a couple that did seem to make some justification for it. The sly ones [not the "justifiers"], were having some fun... Even in serious stuff can't we still have some healthy fun cracking wise, spinning puns?
"Fishy" puns rise to the bait, on every thread that holds a fin or flipper, I've noticed.
But that showing up to stand in line, waiting to go "whale watching", holding a harpoon, THAT was funny!
I might just try it....heheh
it could go like this; Being a longtime commercial fisherman (among other things) and personally knowing for many years, the owners of both; a sports fishing/whale watching outfit that has about a half-dozen boats; and a "touristy" fish & steak restaurant on the waterfront, which has an old, heavily stocked harpoon, which is either genuinely 'old' or a pretty good replica, hanging on a wall in the bar...
Certain guys on either side of the equation would have to be in on it, of course...
Guess I'll have to wait 'till fall, for the Grays to swim down, on their way to Mexico.