Well , by that logic any and all meat has to be banned.

That is unachievable at the moment.

It's saddening, that people willingly participate in extinction of a species however... that is what whaling has become after all.

Extinction is a bit too strong of a word here - the combined minke whale population (AFAIK, minkes in the northern and southern hemisphere are considered separate species) is numbered in the hundreds of thousands; Japan kills a few hundred a year, last year Norway caught 342.

Full disclosure - Norwegian, living in an area where whaling has been performed for hundreds of years, currently have about 12-15 pounds of whale meat in the freezer.

What is the texture and taste like (since whales are mammals) ? Does it have fat marbling like beef/pork ?

That depends on where it is cut from, but overall whale meat is very dark - almost black - and pretty lean, marbling being rare.

If you don’t overcook it, it is extremely tender, but quickly -very quickly- turns rubber-y if it spends too long in the frying pan. You can eat it raw - with a spoon, almost.

Taste is slightly liver-y, and if the meat is old it can take on a cod liver oil-like taste which is rather unpleasant.

I mostly eat it like beef (meat room-tempered, nutmeg-browned butter in the frying pan, meat in pan thirty seconds either side to get a nice surface, then pull aside to rest for a few minutes prior to eating) or as a stew - onions, black pepper, whatever mushrooms I can find, whale meat diced, fry for a short while, add copious amounts of heavy cream, simmer until potatoes are done, yumyum.

Who is to say what is "needless"?

Dictionary does a pretty good job. "Not Needed. Unnecessary."

There's a pretty valid point to be made that you don't NEED to eat whale meat. Or Cow meat. Or any meat really. There are economically available options in most areas that would allow for a nutritionally balanced, vegetarian (possibly vegan) diet.

This is specifically true about a developed nation like Japan.

There's counterpoints to be made (not all farm land is suitable for crop farming, so using it for husbandry is valuable; a complete one day flip without a slow phase out of meat would be economically devastating; freedom to eat animals is my right, etc) but you can't really say you NEED to do it. Science and nutrition doesn't back that up, and the economics are hazy at best.

>There's a pretty valid point to be made that you don't NEED to eat whale meat. Or Cow meat. Or any meat really. There are economically available options in most areas that would allow for a nutritionally balanced, vegetarian (possibly vegan) diet.

With that sense of "need" you also don't need to be on HN, or on the internet. Heck, you don't need clothes if you live in a warm climate, and neither do you need 99% of your processions (and surely not in that quality).

"Need" is not much of an argument.

People need food, and water so it is perfectly valid argument. Just not for slaughtering whales.

If by "need", you mean "need to survive", you could survive your entire life just by drinking human milk. By not eating plants, you'd be improving animal welfare even more, since agriculture kills many more animals than grazing-based animal husbandry (think all the pests that are eliminated: the rodents, insects, etc.)

I guess different between cow and whale is one is hunting and one is not. But then we have general fishing. Still muddy water.