Norway Increased Its Whaling Quota Despite International Opposition

In Norway, whaling is declining sharply. While this activity was once flourishing, there are just 11 whalers in the entire country, a number almost halved from the previous year. The Norwegian authorities have simply decided to increase its annual whaling quota, in a bid to revive the declining hunt.

Image Credit Pixabay User skeeze

1,278: This is the number of Minke whales that the Norwegian fisheries are allowed to harvest this year. A figure 28% increase over the previous year.

“I hope the quota and the merging of fishing zones will be a good starting point for a good season for the whaling industry,” Norwegian Fisheries Minister Per Sandberg said in a statement. Last year, only 432 cetaceans were harpooned, when the quota was 999. This figure seems to be decreasing year by year.

Despite an international moratorium put in place by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 1986, Norway, with Iceland, is the only country in the world to allow whaling (Japan also hunts whales, but officially, it is authorized for "scientific" purposes only).

Not sure, however, that the increase in authorized quotas translates into more whales killed: the whalers, fewer and fewer, do not even fill half. For their part, Norwegian consumers seem to be losing interest in this meat, which is not locally known at all, and is considered poor quality - unlike countries like Japan.

For the animal rights activists, this is proof that this is an outdated and superfluous industry: “Greenpeace believes Norway should take the logical consequences of the International Whaling Commission’s ban on commercial whaling, the widespread opposition to whaling, as well as the lack of local market for the products, and close down this unnecessary and outdated industry,” Truls Gulowsen, the head of Greenpeace Norway, said to AFP. “Norwegian whaling belongs to the past, is only maintained for narrow political reasons and should be phased out as quickly as possible,”