Horses in your culture!

[Aleco]

I never even thought of it as taboo But pork and beef aren't eaten certain places, so I guess it's not that strange. I remember coming to the US, thinking the whole world ate whale...

[mōdgethanc]

I'd try whale if it were easy to obtain it here.

That's kind of taboo here, but I still get some at the local Dutch store.

Not in Quebec. You can find it in grocery stores there. (Even in Ottawa.)

[Varislintu]

I remember coming to the US, thinking the whole world ate whale...

How old were you at that time? I thought whaling was such a big famous environmental issue that people would be aware of its restrictions, especially in the countries that still allow it.

[Aleco]

It's only been four years actually. Apart from watching Animal Planet, I'm not sure where I would've come across anything that would suggest it was controversial. E.g. I had heard of some people sinking a whaling boat, but figured that was the same as people freeing animals from captivity at fur farms; some people were against it, but it was still a thing the majority didn't think twice about.

[Johanna]

The anti-whaling movement is a bit weird... I admire them when they go after Japanese ships, since those seem to catch any whales they like, and they go out there and pursue the whales with little regard to the species in question.

But the people I saw in the Faroe Islands in 2011... honestly they should have gone to Sweden and protested against our treatment of wolves and how many elks (moose) we have to kill each year to make up for that.

I mean, whaling in the Faroes means killing whales of a non-threatened species that happen to swim a bit too close to the islands or even between them, while in Sweden we kill enough wolves to keep the population down (meaning that we also keep the gene pool a bit to small), and to keep hunters happy so that they can continue shooting 100,000 or so elks (moose) annually, plus a lot of roe deer

[Varislintu]

It's only been four years actually. Apart from watching Animal Planet, I'm not sure where I would've come across anything that would suggest it was controversial. E.g. I had heard of some people sinking a whaling boat, but figured that was the same as people freeing animals from captivity at fur farms; some people were against it, but it was still a thing the majority didn't think twice about.

So it's not talked about in school, media, among people, etc? I guess I'm just surprised since Finns just can't stop talking about every single issue where we perceive ourselves to be different or at odds with the world. Like half the population here has something akin to wolf phobia, and so it is talked about all the time how our view and treatment of wolves relates to Europe's and the EU's view.

[Aleco]

I can't really explain why It might have to do with the fact that none of my classmates ever cared much about anything but having fun, and I never watched the news or TV in general, so I would never have caught dicsussions in the media. On the Internet I would check the news, but I can't remember having seen it there.