Authorities in Iceland have recently announced a plan to kill over 2,000 whales over the next five years. Naturally, environmental organizations are outraged as Iceland keeps on challenging the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) ban on commercial whaling.
The IWC adopted a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, efficiently banning commercial whaling worldwide. Despite the ban and a declining market for whale meat, Iceland has planned to move forward.
And Iceland is not the only country set its sights, once more, on whales – one of the biggest and oldest animals on Earth, whose only predator is humans. In September 2018, the IWC rejected a proposal by Japan to renew commercial whaling. In late December of the same year, Japan announced it'd withdraw its membership in the IWC and resume whale hunting in its territorial waters.
Similar to limits placed on Japanese whalers which will restrict them to territorial waters, whalers in Iceland will be authorized to “harpoon 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales in Icelandic waters every year until 2023,” the Independent reports.
Icelandic officials have emphasizes on the supposed economic benefits of whaling, citing a report by an economist with ties to the pro-whaling Independence Party and figures demonstrating that the endangered fin whale population is in recovery. “During the most recent count in 2015, their population in the central North Atlantic was estimated at 37,000, or triple the number from 1987,” a statement read.
According to Kristjan Thor Juliusson, Iceland’s fisheries minister, the limits are based on the latest scientific research and are, in fact, sustainable.
People involved in Iceland’s booming whale tourism industry note that whales are worth more alive than they're dead. According to the University of Iceland, whale tourism revenue topped 3.2 billion krona in 2017 while whaling brought in only 1.7 billion krona.
Your headline here: "Iceland Plans To Kill More Than 2,000 Whales, Challenging The International Ban Again", is VERY misleading and more akin to propaganda than strict facts. Not only would most readers be unaware that you are referring to half a decade of a planned quota, but you also exaggerate the intended quota, you write: "More Than 2,000 Whales" should be writing "MOSTLY 1,890 whales" for those five years, and of those 1890 there are 1,085 of the rather small mink whales, caught mainly by sea-farmers on their boats (217 per year X5). A thinkinghumanity website should not exaggerate nor mislead like that. And, to conclude, those total 1,890 can easily shrink down to less than 1,500 (including mink whales) in case of less total catch than intended, and this often happens here in Icelandic waters. --Thank for this, chaps!
ReplyDelete