Anger as Norway raises whaling quota

NORWAY: Norway angered environmentalists yesterday by announcing a 28 per cent increase in its annual whaling quota, to 1278 whales, in an attempt to revive its ailing industry.

In recent years, Norway’s whalers have failed to catch the quotas set by Oslo, and the number of whaling boats has plummeted. Its government hopes that by raising the quota, more whalers will take to the waters.

‘‘I hope the quota and the merging of fishing zones will be a good starting point for a good season for the whaling industry,’’ said Per Sandberg, the fisheries minister.

However, British-based group Whale and Dolphin Conservation criticised the enlarged quota as a ‘‘provocative and unnecessary move’’.

Norway is one of just two countries in the world to authorise whaling. The other is Iceland.

Japan is also a notorious whalehunting nation, but officially it kills the marine mammals for the purposes of scientific research. In reality, much of the whale meat ends up being eaten, with whale being relatively commonplace in restaurants.

Norway, whose whaling today is limited to the Minke whale, which it kills using explosive penthrite grenade harpoons, refuses to abide by a 1986 international hunting moratorium, which it formally opposed.

After a brief pause, Norway resumed its Minke whale hunt in 1993, saying that it considered stocks sufficiently high. According to Oslo, there are now more than 100,000 Minkes in Norwegian waters. The International Whaling Commission has repeatedly passed resolutions calling for Norway (as well as Japan and Iceland) to return to the international fold, but the organisation has no means to force compliance.

Yet despite the resumption, the number of Norwegians taking up whaling is in freefall. From around 350 whaling vessels in 1950, the numbers plunged to 11 in 2017, almost 50 per cent down from the previous year.

The number of whales killed has also dropped, from 660 in 2015 to 432 last year. In 2017, the quota was 999 – the ‘‘lowest in many years’’, according to Sandberg.

Whaling professionals say that their failure to meet the annual quotas is due to insufficient capacity at whale meat processing plants and rising fuel prices.

Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is that the whales are increasingly elusive, as they swim to colder waters, which are increasingly remote because of global warming.

Whaling is an emotive subject in Norway, which started hunting the mammals as early as the 9th century, but today few Norwegians eat whale meat.

Animal rights activists argue that local politicians and fishing authorities refuse to see that the drop is down to a lack of consumer interest.

A spokesman for Whale and Dolphin Conservation said: ‘‘The popularity of whale meat is falling, and hunts rely on state subsidies. The government is constantly searching for new markets to exploit. There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea. Many die a slow, painful death.

‘‘This slaughter is unnecessary, uneconomical, unquestionably cruel, and pointless.’’

– Telegraph Group