Norway hunting whales again
As you all probably know by now, there's three countries who are have been pushing for a return towards commercial whaling - Japan, Norway and Iceland. Japan, you know about - the Esperanza has just been on an expedition to encounter the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean - and is now in Tokyo. Iceland killed some endangered fin whales last year, causing an eruption of controversy. Check out fin whales on the World Conservation Union's Red List.
Now Norway is back in the news - the five-month whaling season began on 1st April, despite an international ban on commercial whaling - Norway has been hunting minkes in the North Atlantic since 1993 through a legal 'objection' lodged against the ban at the International Whaling Commission and has rapidly increased its self-allocated quota from 670 in 2004 to 796 in 2005 up to 1052 in 2007. However, few Norwegians actually eat whale meat, and the catch has not followed the increasing quota which is set high for political reasons.
With 30 boats are licensed to hunt whales, Quotas have been set for more than a thousand minke whales, just like last year. But last year, the hunt was stopped early with less than half the quota taken, because of lack of demand for whale meat.
Six years ago, the Norway announced that the export of whale meat and blubber to Japan would be allowed even though such trade could only be conducted under a double reservation to the rules of CITES (Both Japan and Norway hold cites reservations to the Appendix 1 listing of minke whales). A spokesperson for the whalers' public relations arm described the decision as 'the final victory'. Greenpeace has documented tons of frozen blubber, each block carefully wrapped and labelled in Japanese, stored in Norwegian industrial freezers, waiting for export.
Let's hope that the whalers don't make their quota again this year.
Note: CITES, of course, is the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
