Sunday 6 May 2012

Norway whalers take first whales of hunting season


Norway has set a quota of 1,286 Minke whales for this year's season, though its whaling fleet is expected to have trouble meeting it.

OSLO — Norwegian whale hunters have harpooned the first three whales of the year, nearly a month after the controversial hunting season began, the country's Fishermen's Sales Organization said on May 2.
 
"Three whales were taken off Bear Island on Sunday (April 29)," Per Rolandsen, of the sales organization's division in Norway's Arctic Lofoten archipelago, told AFP.
 
Norway's whale hunting season started on April 1 and is set to last until August 31, but Rolandsen explained that weather conditions had been poor and the vessels had been tied up until now with other fishing activities.
 
"The whale hunt is very weather dependent (but) we expect now that the hunting conditions will improve," he said.
 
Norway and Iceland are, with Japan, the only countries to defy the 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling, claiming Minke whale stocks are large enough to merit limited hunts.
 
Japan uses a loophole that allows killing the animals for "lethal research," but a large portion of the meat also makes it to commercial markets.
 
Norway has set a quota of 1,286 Minke whales for this year's season  the same as last year  even though the country's dwindling whaling fleet is having trouble filling the quota.

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