Latest Whaling in Iceland Stories
WASHINGTON, June 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Washington, DC and London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) today revealed that proposals to resume commercial whaling under the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will cost nearly 19 million dollars over the next decade. Estimated additional costs for the US during this time would be over $988,000 if costs were shared between member countries. A document posted to the IWC's website last week(1) outlined basic costs for...
On Thursday, a fleet of Japanese harpoon ships launched their springtime coastal whale hunt with expectations of killing 60 whales during what the country considers scientific research. The expedition started just 10 days after the last Japanese whaling ship returned from an Antarctic hunt, which found harassment by environmental activists. Japan's fisheries agency said four whaling ships and one research vessel would hunt mink whales until early June, which is before a meeting of the...
YARMOUTH PORT, Mass., April 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW - www.ifaw.org) announced that the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has released a new plan to legalize commercial whaling. The proposal, if adopted, would overturn the 1986 ban on commercial whaling by authorizing whaling by Norway, Iceland, and Japan. It would also legalize Japan's whaling in an internationally recognized whale sanctuary around Antarctica, grant new rights to...
CANBERRA, Australia, April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent New York Times article claiming that Australia supported a compromise proposal to allow whaling was "completely wrong," Australia's International Whaling Commissioner Donna Petrachenko said in Washington today. Commissioner Petrachenko is attending a meeting of the 12-member International Whaling Commission (IWC) Support Group discussing the Future of the IWC. Reiterating statements made by the Minister for Environment Protection,...
United States Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) has introduced a new bill that would reaffirm the country's support of a ban on commercial whaling and fund research to help protect various species of the oceanic mammals from harm."Thousands of whales die each year from commercial whaling, ship strikes, and habitat disruption," said Kerry, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to a March 15 AFP article. "We should be leading the effort to protect...
Australia and Japan failed to strike a deal on Thursday to end a dispute on whaling, but the U.S. negotiator said the nations would continue to seek compromise. Key players on whaling fought for a compromise in a three day meeting at a Florida beach resort to allow Japan, Norway and Iceland hunt whales openly despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. In the agreement, the whaling nations would have to put their activities under the close supervision of the 88-nation International...
Australia wants to phase out harpooning of whales in the Southern Ocean over the next five years and is calling for an end to "scientific whaling". The demands, aimed at Japanese whalers, were outlined in a proposal sent to the International Whaling Commission, said Environment Minister Peter Garrett. Australian officials threatened to take legal action against Japan over its whaling practices if principle conservation objectives cannot be secured by negotiation. The proposal to end whaling...
YARMOUTH PORT, Mass., Feb. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A draft plan unveiled today proposes to legalize commercial whaling for the first time since a 1986 moratorium made it illegal to hunt whales for commercial purposes. The plan was drafted by member countries of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), an international body which meets annually to set global policy on whaling and whale conservation. Despite the moratorium, three of the IWC's 88 member countries - Japan, Norway,...
WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Susan Lieberman, director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group, issued the following statement today in response to recent efforts to resolve the impasse at the International Whaling Commission. "The proposed compromise released today by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) fails to respect both the IWC's 1994 declaration of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary as well as the IWC's 28-year-old moratorium on commercial...
A fisheries official announced Wednesday that Japan will propose scaling down its troubled annual whale hunt in Antarctica, on conditions that it is allowed to whale commercially in its own coastal waters. The official said that Tokyo plans to present its proposal to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Morocco in June, even though a similar plan was rejected last year by the 85-body nation. "We have been studying ways to reach a packaged agreement and to normalize the IWC...
