Fishing Magnate hits out.

Talley's Fisheries managing director Peter Talley says he is pro-whaling, pro-genetic engineering, anti-animal rights, anti-MMP and sceptical about global warming.

Fishing magnate hits out
By DANIEL NIELSEN - The Nelson Mail | Saturday, 24 March 2007
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Talley's Fisheries managing director Peter Talley says he is pro-whaling, pro-genetic engineering, anti-animal rights, anti-MMP and sceptical about global warming.

Mr Talley made his controversial views known in a speech to more than 200 high school students at a leadership forum on Friday organised by Motueka High School and held at Seifried Estate.

Answering questions from the students, Mr Talley said the Japanese should be allowed to hunt whales because they were doing it sustainably.

He also said seals shouldn't be protected because they catch more fish than inshore fishermen, in particular hoki and cod. Humans should have more rights than seals which were a "very destructive animal".

When a student asked why humans had more rights to fish than seals, Mr Talley answered: "I don't believe in animal rights. I want to kill and eat them."

Mr Talley said money could be made from seals as each one was worth $600 for the omega-3 oils in them. He did not suggest they should be hunted commercially.

However, Mr Talley's views have been dismissed as laughable by environmentalists.

Department of Conservation spokeswoman Vic Vallance said the Government's stance in recent years had always been strongly in favour of the conservation of whales.

"We were a whaling nation but have come to the realisation a live whale is worth far more than a dead whale. The whale-watching industry in Kaikoura alone is testament to that."

Ms Vallance said nobody had the numbers to know for sure whether the number of whales the Japanese were taking was sustainable or not.

Fur seals had been protected since 1894 after nearly being hunted to extinction and were still recovering to the numbers which once lived in New Zealand waters.

The creatures were visible predators and often took the blame for fish deaths, she said.

Greenpeace campaign manager Carmen Gravatt added, "Mr Talley forgot to mention that pigs can fly and the earth is flat".

Mr Talley said New Zealand had a fantastic and sustainable fisheries management system. The country's isolation and exclusive access to waters was benefiting it, he said. "Fishing is New Zealand's fourth largest industry but greenies don't want it."

Mr Talley said the animal rights movement was urban-based and unfairly targeted farmers and meat producers. Graffiti artists were no longer tagging "Ban the bomb" but "Meat is murder", he said.

Mr Talley told the students the organic food movement was riddled with fraud. British supermarket Tesco had removed all its organic produce from its shelves for a period because so much of it wasn't actually organic. He said 70 percent of beef had growth hormones in it and every time people ate chicken they were getting a dose of antibiotics.

He was pro-genetic engineering for this reason and because it cut the need to use pesticides, growth hormones and antibiotics.

Mr Talley also urged the students to get involved in politics and change the overly environmentalist, politically correct and bureaucratic system. He mocked New Zealand's Parliament, labelling its members "a bunch of social misfits", dominated by "hippies" and "tribal warriors".

Government bureaucracy had expanded massively and the country's leaders were "spending money like a fisherman on his first day back in port".

Mr Talley said New Zealand was never going to achieve political stability with the MMP electoral system, advocating a return to first-past-the-post.

Mr Talley said New Zealand's standard of living was slipping. It used to have the third-highest standard of living in the OECD, but had slipped to 23rd out of 29 countries.

He warned that New Zealand would end up like Hawaii, reliant on tourism.

Global warming was a fact but Mr Talley argued that it was not caused by humans but nature itself.

The average global temperature had increased by less than 1degC in the last 50 years and humans were producing a minuscule proportion of carbon dioxide emissions.

He said a huge number of people's jobs relied on global warming being a man-made reality. Scientists claiming it was us and not nature causing global warming were driven by self-interest.