Iceland 2005 whale hunt ends - 39 whales killed
The Icelandic Marine Resources Institute (Hafro) is reporting that the 2005 whaling season has closed, with the last whale being killed on the morning of 17th August.
Iceland continues to hunt whales, despite the international moratorium on commercial whaling, by exploiting a loop hole in the international convention that regulates these activities (the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling).
Every year Iceland issues a permit for so called scientific research, which allows the killing of a certain number of minke whales. The 2005 season began on 4th July. When the season closed last Wednesday, a total of 39 whales had been killed by Icelandic whalers. Reports suggest that Icelandic whalers plan to kill 100 whales next year.
Iceland's persistence with its 'Scientific Whaling' hunt comes after much public opposition to these hunt and after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) passed a resolution in June rejecting Japan’s proposed expansion of its 'Scientific Whaling' in the Antarctic.
WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has many concerns relating to whaling activities, including the inherent cruelty of these hunts. Iceland claims that the hunting methods used to kill minke whales during their 'Scientific Whaling' are the same as those used by Norway, and therefore that there is no need to provide welfare data (such as how long it takes the whale to die).
Spokesperson for WDCS, Philippa Brakes, said: "Data provided by Norway indicates that at least 20 per cent of the minke whales killed during the Norwegian hunts do not die immediately. This is not a satisfactory benchmark for Iceland, or any other whaling nation, to be measuring the humaneness of whale killing."
Philippa added: "Despite the claims from Iceland that the need for scientific research justifies the killing of these whales, Iceland yet again failed to provide any data on the welfare of the whales killed during these hunts to the IWC meeting in Korea in June. It is appalling that Iceland fails to provide these data. The world has a right to know how long whales take to die in these hunts. In fact, using a somewhat contradictory argument, Iceland responded to a request for welfare data by stating that it has not yet killed enough whales to provide statistically reliable results, further calling into question any justification that these hunts have scientific merit."
Source: WDCS and www.hafro.is
posted by Melt du Plooy @ 8/22/2005
1 comments
1 Comments:
What a load of nonsense.
Iceland continues to hunt whales, not despite the moratorium, but it totally inline with the word and letter of Article VIII of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
There is no "loop hole" - Article VIII expressly states that it is the right of ICRW signatories to take whales for scientific studies.
The whole premiss of the ICRW is to ensure whale resources are conserved while at the same time providing for a sustainable whaling industry. In order to achieve this completely rational goal, the drafters of the ICRW also added such provisions because they understood that in order to be able to conserve whale resources and allow for whaling industry, human activities need to be guided based on sound science.
Iceland, like Japan, is responsibly seeking to gain further information about the whale populations surrounding it, so that it will be in a good position to contribute to wise management decisions at the IWC.
The world community should be commending Iceland for their position.
Meanwhile, the WDCS is criticising the fact that Norwegian whaling techniques ensure 80% of all whales struck die instantaneously.
Well, I ask WDCS, when a whale is attacked by a pack of sharks, do they expect the pack of sharks to finish off the whale instantaneously, or even in a matter of minutes?
How separated from the realities of nature are WDCS?
It's clear that human hunting methods bring very fast death to whale targets, far more so than the methods used by shark packs.
What "humane killing" means, is simply "humans killing animals as fast as possible using the least painful, swiftest methods available". There is no question that whalers the world over are perfectly "humane" in their activities.
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