Whale slaughter to increase; focus shifts to Iceland

Outposts has been sharply critical of Japan for its insistence on hunting whales regardless of international opposition and a moratorium on commercial whaling.

And readers have pointed out that Iceland and Norway are also whaling nations. Sad, but true.

In fact, a story that moved today on the Environment News Service cited Iceland's plan to slaughter hundreds of endangered fin whales over the next five years.

The outgoing fisheries minister -- the coalition government resigned Monday -- said the new and substantially larger quotas are according to scientific recommendations of the Icelandic Marine Research Institute.

Huh? Killing whales for science? That sounds familiarly bogus.

Iceland, presumably, has increased quotas -- it hopes to kill 150 fin whales and 100 non-endangered minke whales annually through 2013 -- to  sell meat abroad, mostly to Japan, where there's still considerable demand.

As the head of a European marine mammal conservation group noted, "It is a sad day for whales that they now become the latest potential victims of the world economic crisis and we have not seen a hunt of this scale in the North Atlantic since the 1980s."

-- Pete Thomas

Photo: An endangered fin whale is brought to the harbor of Hvalfjörour, Iceland in 2006. Credit: Greenpeace

Comments

[Neil Spalla]

Looks like their making great use of a renewable resource and it sure seems a lot more environment friendly and humane than factory farming beef.
American whale cults should mind their own business.

[Helgi Gudnason]

Fin whales are not an endangered species, they may be in the southern hemisphere, but not up north. The quota will be decided in consultation with scientist, no one claims the whales are being hunted for scientific purposes. They are caught for the meat.

[Gunnar]

Pete,

You seem to have misunderstood the story.

Iceland's MRI is a scientific organization which advises the government on appropriate limits for anthropogenic removals of whales. This is what happens with all the marine resources that Iceland exploits.

No doubt, biological samples will be collected from the harvested whales for use in future analyses, but this is an aside. Make no mistake, this is plain commercial whaling and Iceland is not trying to hide this in any way at all.

The quotas are more than conservative. There are more than 20,000 fin whales in the region, and probably at least the same number of minkes, if not more. As such, these annual harvest levels are less than a single percentage of the estimated abundance, where as it is recognised that these populations have reproductive capability that will more than compensate for the harvest. Indeed, the populations will likely continue to increase and allow for even greater harvests when the next 5 year quota block is set in 2013.

[Ólafur Jón]

And damm good meat :-)

I think the truth is that if we did not hunt whales, these organizations whould just find somthing else to bug us with.

In other words, they do it mostly for the money.

Why does "muuuh" sound more intelligent under water?

[Thor]

People seem to have the tendency to generalize when it comes to "whales" there are many species of whales... some reproduce much faster than others.

Iceland is one of, if not the, most responsible country in the world when it comes to managing local marine resources. Hunting a couple of hundred whales is not reducing the stock of these whales species and it is quite necessary as a means to maintain the stock of other species in the sea.

Moreover, the culture of whale hunting is Iceland's collective human right! Don't you dare to deny us of this right... especially when Iceland faces economic collapse and must resort to means that produce profit and sustenance.

How can you object the responsible harvest of food when more than a billion people can't get any food at all?

The only argument is for the ethical treatment of animals overall... If that is what you stand for, then please focus on more pressing issues.

If you're actually going to set yourself against something, make sure you understand the issue... otherwise you just look like a prejudice fool.

[bob m]

Whale meat is delicious.

We are getting robbed of some good tasty food here in the US because some idiots think that whales are cute cuddly animals.

[Allan Peterson]

From 1930-60 500,000 Finback whales were commercially killed, putting their population at risk. It seems that the limits placed on protecting that population have helped but they are far below their historic numbers. I can see why there are folks having some serious reservations about new whale hunts being approved. Its a slippery slope.

As far as collective human rights, slavery used to be claimed as a right. Sorry, but culture doesn't trump science. If it does, then it risks its own endangerment. I certainly can see that some whaling for cultural reasons is justified, but as Gunnar points out, this is commercial whaling plain and simple. And Gunnar's numbers seem right, but ignore the huge decline in Fins historically. Iceland's hunting of them just adds to Japan's whaling appetite, which is, it seems clear, on the wrong side of history.

Bob M, I don't doubt that whale meat is tasty. I'm sure a great white shark might feel that way about you. I'd hate to see that happen because I'm sure you are cute and cuddly!

[Gunnar]

Allan, Fin whales are resident in various areas of ocean around the globe, but are made up of distinct sub-populations.

Around Iceland the Fin whale population is relatively healthy, as seen in the estimates. This is the population of whales that is in question.

The majority of over-exploitation of Fin whales occurred in the Southern Ocean (and for the primary purpose of obtaining oil, after Blue whales had been decimated for the same reason). Even the Southern Ocean populations appear to be increasing (as they would after 30+ years of protection - it was protected in the 1970's long before the "moratorium"). Theoretically, if the quotas are low enough there is no reason that those populations would not continue to recover even if sustainable harvests were resumed. The quotas just have to ensure that the natural rate of increase is not over-balanced by harvest pressure.

Finally, please don't try to compare slavery and whaling. Whaling is like fishing or hunting.

[Nancy Hicks]

When there is money to be made everything is fair game. To bad these countries don't have the balls to come right out and say we are commercial fishing. They are looking everybody in the face and lying. Whales should be left alone.

[Thor]

Allan, are you seriously comparing whaling to slavery? You obviously don't understand...

Moreover, the collective human right we claim is not at odds with science. Scientific observation suggests that it is the responsible thing to sustainably harvest the local resources; to strike a balance between harvesting and protecting all of the species in our sea. I was not suggesting that it was not commercial whaling... hunting for this purpose is our collective human right.

In addition, please don't downgrade the seriousness of the persistent problem that is slavery (and human trafficking) by comparing it to prevailing differences in attitude towards hunting animals.

[Melinda]

To many of you horrid proclamations,

I think your personal comments were horrendous statements to set forth. The environmental organizations are able to help the innocent whales they are getting slaughtered every year, the money goes to helping and facilitating these amazing creatures, and without them the world would be very cruel hearted. I am very against whaling and I believe Iceland is just one of the many contemptible countries that are involved within this horrific murder.