Whaler Wastes Tons of Fin Whale

Whaler Wastes Tons of Fin Whale



Feb 2007 - More than 475 
tons of whale meat, bones and entrails from a recent Icelandic 
hunt are going to waste, Greenpeace activists have learned 
following an article in a small-town Icelandic newspaper. 
The international conservation organization has found that 200 
metric tons of fin whale meat is sitting in storage waiting to 
be tested for chemical contamination. 
A further 179 metric tons of fin whale remains - entrails and 
bones - have been buried at a landfill site and left to rot, 
according to Greenpeace Nordic oceans campaigner Frode Pleym. 
Landfill in Iceland where a whaling company dumped more than 
175 tons of fin whale remains.  
“Iceland claims their commercial whaling is sustainable – but 
how can they justify it when they are hunting endangered 
species, without domestic demand, and an over-supply of whale 
products in Japan?” said Pleym. 
"Skessuhorn," a local paper in Borgarnes, a small town about 
80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Reykjavik, broke the story in 
late January. 
The fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus, is listed under Appendix 
I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered 
Species, CITES. Appendix I species are threatened with 
extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in these 
species for commercial purposes. 
The fin whale is classified as Endangered in the IUCN's Red 
Data Book on the basis of an estimated decline of at least 50 
percent worldwide over the last three generations of fin 
whales - from 60 to 75 years. 
“Both Iceland and Japan continue to whale in the face of 
domestic and international opposition, even though there is no 
scientific, economic or environmental justification for it,” 
Pleym said. 
Icelandic whaler Kristjan Loftsson was awarded a commercial 
quota of nine fin whales by the Icelandic government. He 
landed seven, with the total catch estimated at 350 tons. 
But in late October or early November, Greenpeace confirmed, 
nearly half of this tonnage was dumped in a landfill about 24 
kilometers (15 miles) west of Borgarnes. 
The Icelandic meat and blubber in storage is intended for 
export to Japan, despite the fact that Japan had 4,962 metric 
tons of whale meat stockpiled as of October 2006, according to 
the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Foresty and Fisheries. 
Last year, 5,500 tons of whale meat was supplied to the 
Japanese market. This includes whale meat which does not get 
eaten and is thrown away because it did not sell, Greenpeace 
said. 
“It is no surprise that there are massive stockpiles of whale 
meat, when a recent survey shows that 95 pecent of Japanese 
people never or have rarely eaten whale meat," said Greenpeace 
Japan's campaign director, Junichi Sato. "It is time for all 
governments to make a commitment to the whales and not an 
outdated, unwanted and pointless industry." 
The fin whale is the second largest whale, reaching lengths of 
up to 27 meters (88 feet) and weights up to 69 metric tonnes 
(76 tons).  
Between 1883 and 1939, Iceland killed 2,294 blue whales, 1,541 
fin whales, 213 humpbacks, 98 sperm whales, 10 sei whales and 
13,502 more unspecified whales mostly blue and fin whales, 
according to historical records. 
In 1946, Iceland became a founding member of the International 
Whaling Commission, IWC, the body established to regulate 
whaling and conserve whales. 
According to a historical overview of Icelandic whaling 
compiled by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, from 
1948 to 1986 Iceland caught a further 17,078 whales, including 
163 blue whales, 9,180 fin whales, 2,644 sei whales and 2885 
sperm whales. 
Iceland stopped commercial whaling just before the ongoing IWC 
ban on commercial whaling came into effect in 1986. 
In 1986, Iceland began to engage in so-called "scientific 
whaling" in order to avoid the moratorium on commercial 
whaling. By 1989 it had killed 292 fin whales and 70 sei 
whales for so-called research. 
Iceland’s scientific whaling operation ended in 1989 and 
Iceland left the IWC in 1992. 
In 2002, after two failed attempts to rejoin the IWC with a 
reservation against the moratorium on commercial whaling, 
Iceland was readmitted. 
Despite the disapproval of the IWC, on August 14, 2003 Iceland 
began once more to hunt and kill whales.

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