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Iceland: Iceland Announces Dramatically Reduced Whale Hunt for 2004 |
| June 3, 2004 |
Source: Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
 | Minke whales have been the target of Iceland's internationally criticized scientific whaling program.
Photo: Vancouver Aquarium |
Yesterday, Iceland's Fisheries Minister, Arni Mathiesen announced that Iceland will renew its whale hunt in the summer of 2004, taking 25 minke whales for so called 'scientific research'. This is a reduction from 36 whales killed last year, and a dramatic step back from Iceland's original plan to take 250 whales annually.
Iceland's announcement justified the hunt as necessary to gather information on minke whales in Icelandic waters, including the amount of fish they eat. However, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has made clear that whaling for scientific research is "an act contrary to the spirit of the moratorium on commercial whaling" and, in 2003, adopted a resolution asking any country planning to conduct such research whaling to terminate, or not to begin, such activities. When Iceland ignored this advice last summer, 23 governments sent a diplomatic letter to Iceland, calling its actions "unjustified and unnecessary".
Mark Simmonds, WDCS's [Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society] Director of Science, commented, " The argument that Iceland is using to resume whaling is based on a misguided assertion that whales eat too many fish and need to be culled to protect fish stocks. This misses the point that abundant whale stocks and abundant fish stocks have co-existed through millennia. What is upsetting the equation is human over-fishing."
Minister Mathiesen recently told the Icelandic Parliament that, out of about 35 tons of whale meat produced by Iceland's 2003 hunt, 23 tonnes remain unsold.
"Clearly, the Icelandic public is not interested in eating whale meat" said Sue Fisher of WDCS. "It seems that the Japanese market is not interested either. Information on the levels of contaminants, such as mercury and PCBs, in North Atlantic minkes may be putting off a lot of people, including its biggest potential export market - Japan."
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