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godzilla 18 October 2006 General 192 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

The Independent

Iceland has decided to resume commercial whaling, in defiance of the 20-year-old international whaling moratorium. The country joins Norway in openly hunting the great whales for profit. In recent years it has been killing a small number of animals annually but saying it was hunting them for “scientific” reasons, as does Japan.

Iceland’s current permits include 200 minke whales from 2003-07, of which 161 have been caught, leaving 39 for 2007. It will now allow whalers to harpoon a commercial quota of 30 minke whales and nine fin whales in the year to the end of August 2007.

The huge fin whale, second in size only to the blue whale, the world’s largest animal, dropped in numbers catastrophically during the 20th century because of hunting. It is listed as an endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

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However, environmentalists are strongly opposed to the move. “We strongly urge Iceland to abandon its plans to resume commercial whaling. It’s cruel, there’s no money in whaling, hardly anyone in Iceland eats whale meat and now they want to expand their whaling to include an endangered species – it’s crazy,” said Robbie Marsland, UK director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

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Recent polling by Gallup in Iceland revealed that only 1.1 per cent of Icelanders eat whale meat once a week or more, while 82.4 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds never eat whale meat… IFAW urges Iceland to protect its booming whale watching industry, which attracts thousands of tourists to Iceland every year.

Tourism groups and whale watching organisations in Iceland have voiced their concerns over the effects of scientific whaling on their economy. To pursue commercial whaling, and to add endangered fin whales to the list, will risk serious damage to Iceland’s tourism industry, as well as its international reputation.”

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While Norway and Japan have taken whales since 1986, the Norwegians commercially and the Japanese under the guise of science, the Icelanders have had an on-off relationship with hunting.

The Norwegians allowed a quota of 1,052 minke whales in 2006, while Japan caught 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales in Antarctic waters last season.