Europe: Whale Enemy No.1

Conservationists Outraged by Escalation of Whaling and Whale Meat Tradeby European Countries

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