Are you serious? Because a pig or calf can be bought for a few hundred bucks, few thousand tops, and raised in a suburban back yard. Because there is zero chance they are keystone species.
An adult sperm whale weighs over 100 tons and eats about a ton a day. Do you not see the practical implications of that with regards to irreversible damage?
Edit: missed the sustainable part of your post. Whaling afaik can't be sustainable because the demand in Japan is high enough that whale populations simply can't replenish fast enough. They have a very slow reproductive and nurturing cycle.
I thought the demand in Japan was so low they had trouble selling the whale meat they hunted in the past couple of years. But I haven't been able to find a reliable source for that.
I always figured the Japanese stance was borne of out of politics and nationalism -- and possibly cronyism, I'm sure somebody is getting rich -- rather than driven by consumer demand.
"Today, whale stocks are carefully monitored, and while many species are still endangered, others - like the minke whale that Japan primarily hunts - are not."
An adult sperm whale weighs over 100 tons and eats about a ton a day. Do you not see the practical implications of that with regards to irreversible damage?
Edit: missed the sustainable part of your post. Whaling afaik can't be sustainable because the demand in Japan is high enough that whale populations simply can't replenish fast enough. They have a very slow reproductive and nurturing cycle.