Denmark Seeking Consent To Hunt Humpback Whales
Environmentalists are infuriated by a Danish request for consent to continue hunting humpback whales of the coast of Greenland, the AFP accounted.
Ole Samsing, Danish commissioner at the annual International Whaling Commission (IWC) conference being held on the Portuguese island of Madeira, immediately demanded a “quick solution” in light of the request.
"We want to put forward a proposal for a quota of 10 humpback whales per year for the 2010-2012 period" in Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, Samsing said.
Samsing informed that hunting of humpbacks would fall in a category under so-called “aboriginal” or subsistence hunting to sustain local communities.
Samsing also suggested decreasing the quota of minke whales from 200 to 178 in effort to balance the resuming of the humpback hunt.
A moratorium in 1966 made commercial hunting of humpbacks prohibited.
Until 1987, Greenland persisted to capture the large aquatic mammals within legal sanctions, when the ban was broadened to “aboriginal” or subsistence hunting.
According to environmental activists critical of Danish intentions, it is not necessary for Greenland to receive a quota increase.
"Overall since 1991, Greenland has taken only 77 percent of its whole available quota," the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) said in a statement encouraging the IWC to reject the request.
"The IWC scientific committee has already made it clear that the humpback population can withstand 10 being captured a year," Portuguese commissioner Jorge Palmeirim, head of the sub-commission for subsistence whaling, told the press.
"But the question is one of need, and it is not clear that they need to increase their quota," Palmeirim added.
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