Europe: Whale Enemy No.1

BOSTON, June 9 /PRNewswire/ — Two weeks before the annual Meeting of the
International Whaling Commission (IWC), taking place from 22nd to the 26th of
June in Madeira, Portugal, European whaling nations provoke the international
community with an increase of whaling quotas and granting export permits for
whale meat to Japan. In response WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Society, calls “Europe: Whale Enemy No.1″ and launches its campaign to
request immediate action taken by the US government as well as the Member
States of the European Union.

Iceland: The Hvalur 9 whaling vessel has begun preparing for a hunt of up
to 150 endangered fin whales in the coming weeks in the North Atlantic for
commercial purposes. This, together with 100 minke whales, is the highest
self allocated whaling quota by Iceland since the moratorium on commercial
whaling was implemented in 1986. With almost no domestic market for such huge
amounts of whale meat in Iceland, the fin whaling company, Hvalur hf, has
announced that the meat from all 150 fin whales (amounting to some 6000 tones
of meat) will be sold to Japan by one company. Previously this company has
sold 80 tonnes to Japan.

Norway: Facing the same situation of a decreasing market demand for whale
products, WDCS just found out that Norway, hunting up to 885 minke whales for
commercial purposes this year, has granted two export permits for almost 50
tons of whale meat and blubber to be exported to Japan.

Denmark: In a parallel development, Denmark is going to request the
killing of 50 humpback whales off the western shores of Greenland, during a
period of 5 years. This is in addition to more than 230 large whales that get
killed under an “aboriginal subsistence whaling” quota in Greenland every
year as well as around 4000 small whales. Humpback whales have not been
commercially hunted for decades. Although Denmark says Greenland needs the
meat to feed its people, the fact is that Greenland has a yearly surplus of
whale meet, which is being stockpiled and sold in supermarkets.

“Europe likes to point the finger to Japan as a rogue whaling nation, and
rightly so. However, off its very own shores Europeans are not much better
and whales are being killed in increasing numbers as well,” says Kate
O’Connell, campaigner at WDCS and continues “In fact, Europe has become the
whale enemy Nr One.”

WDCS has launched an online campaign to make the public aware of the
increasing whale hunts taking place in European waters and to call on their
governments to take action. As a charity, WDCS is seeking for support from
the media to provide pro bono online-banner space helping to spread the
message.

Please visit http://www.whales.org for background information on the
situation in Europe.

To receive the banner in the appropriate format/size, please contact:
Roman.richter@wdcs.org

For further information: Kate O’Connell Tel. +1-860-236-1521, E-Mail.
Kate.oconnell@wdcs.org

SOURCE WDCS – Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society