Updates from the IWC meetings:
Greenland has been awarded nine humpback whale kills per year for the next three years. The country has not hunted whales since the moratorium was put into place in 1986, so this movement is actually an increase in the number of future whale deaths, not a decrease as many had hoped this meeting would lead to. The need for whaling in Greenland is controversial; Greenlanders say it is for an aboriginal hunt, but since the moratorium has been put in place and the hunt ceased they have not shown any evidence of the need to reinstate it.
This development particularly worries me, as the whales that will be hunted could possibly be the familiar flukes I've come to recognize on whale watches off of New England.
"WSPA’s 2008 investigation ‘Exploding Myths’ showed that around a quarter of Greenland’s whaling is commercial in nature and it seems that commercial markets are only increasing."
As the IWC comes to a close, environmentalists are grateful that the moratorium was not lifted, but saddened that the illegal hunting of whales will continue by rebel nations.
Full article here (WSPA)
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