An endangered fin whale is brought to the harbor of Hvalfjörour, Iceland. The fin whale is the first kill by Iceland and marks the resumption to commercial whaling for the country.
Iceland announced last year a return to commercial whaling and a
quota of 30 minke whales and 9 fins. But with virtually no market
in Iceland and fears of contamination making Japan unwilling to
purchase North Atlantic whale meat, the hunt has been a disaster.
Icelandic whalers have killed only 7 minkes and 7 fin whales,
haven't made public the results of contamination testing on the
whale meat, and can't seem to convince anyone to buy their
product.
Reuters quotes the Icelandic minister as saying "The whaling
industry, like any other industry, has to obey the market. If there
is no profitability there is no foundation for resuming with the
killing of whales," he said.
The minister said he will not issue a new quota until the market
conditions for whale meat improve and permission to export whale
products to Japan is secured.
Here's news, minister: there's no market for the meat in Japan
either. Japan is having trouble selling the
thousands of tonnes of whale meat it already has in storage
from its own Southern Pacific "scientific" hunt.
So while the minister's statement is short of declaring an end
to Icelandic whaling, it is unlikely that market conditions for
whale meat are going to improve, and even more unlikely that Japan
will purchase the meat.
Iceland conducts a separate "scientific" hunt for minke whales.
This was intended to be a 2 year programme to hunt 200 whales, begun in 2003. Yet with only one more month of
the 2007 whaling season left, the scientific hunt is still 6 whales
short of that quota, despite four years of whaling.
Meat from this so called "scientific" hunt also ends up on
dinner tables, when they can sell it.
While the Icelandic minister is recognising the truth that
there's simply no market for the meat from the commercial hunt, he
might as well face up to another hard fact: there's no legitimate
scientific reason for killing whales.
The Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission
(IWC) reviewed Iceland's scientific programme, and decided not to
support it. Whale experts around the world have demonstrated
viable alternatives to lethal research which makes killing whales
for science unnecessary.
Scientific whaling is just commercial whaling through a
loophole. In the absence of either a scientific or commercial
rationale, Iceland should simply announce an end to whaling.
There's a good economic reason for Iceland to do so. Sparing
the six minkes remaining in the scientific quota could earn
Icelandic tourism a bonus of $US116.9 million from the 112,000
Greenpeace supporters worldwide who have pledged to consider a
visit to Iceland if whaling stops.
All the minister has to do is announce he's hanging up the
harpoons.
But until he does, take
the Icelandic whales pledge!
Donate
Nobody does what we do. Help Greenpeace stay in action by becoming a financial supporter.