Posted by: Paul Newman / posted on June 17th, 2014
Conservation groups are calling on the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and its membergovernments to condemn Iceland’s commercial whale hunt following confirmation that the Icelandic whaling company Hvalur hf has killed yet another endangered fin whale.
The whale was killed off Iceland’s west coast and landed today at the company’s processing station in Hvalfjörður, less than an hour’s drive from the capital Reykjavik.
The kill, the first of the 2014 season, coincides with a working party meeting of the European Union Environment Council in preparation for the meeting of the IWC in September. NGOs are pushing for governments to take a strong stand against Icelandic whaling ahead of, and during, the IWC meeting.
Iceland rejoined the IWC in 2002 with a reservation to the global moratorium on commercial whaling adopted in 1982, and then resumed commercial whaling in 2006. Almost all the fin whale meat originating from the 2014 hunt is destined for Japan, despite a ban on international trade in fin whales under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
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