Authorities grant whalers a quota to hunt the
endangered fin whale this summer after a two-year pause
Daniel
Boffey in
Brussels
Wed 18 Apr 2018 12.05 BSTLast
modified on Wed 18 Apr 2018 15.07 BST
Icelandic fishermen will resume their hunt
for the endangered fin whale this year after a two-year pause and have set a
target of 191 kills for the season.
An apparent loosening of Japanese regulations
on Icelandic exports had made the resumption of the hunting commercially viable
again, the country’s only fin whaling company, Hvalur, announced.
The firm also has plans to collaborate with
researchers from the University of Iceland to develop medicinal products made of
whale blubber and bones, aimed at combating iron deficiency.
Sigursteinn Masson, at the Icelandic branch
of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), said: “I’m very
disappointed. This decision is not based on real market needs and is not in
line with public opinion polls on whaling, which doesn’t belong in modern
times.”
Iceland and Norway are the only countries in
the world to authorise whaling in defiance of the 1986 International Whaling Commission’s moratorium.
Iceland resumed whaling in 2006 on economic
grounds and has defied threats of US sanctions to continue to do so. The US did
not invite Iceland, one of the largest fishing nations in the north Atlantic,
to the Our Ocean conference in 2014.
Japan hunts whales, but claims
it does so for scientific research purposes, although a large share of the
whale meat ends up being consumed.
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