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Norway’s 2007 whaling season draws to a close
by WDCS /Avisa Nordland/ Lofotposten /Fiskeribladet /www.hvalbiff.no/Lofoten.com /www.highnorth.no/
09/09/2007:// Norway’s 2007 whaling season draws to a close and, yet again, whalers have not killed the full quota allocated for the annual commercial hunt.
Despite an international ban on commercial whaling, Norway has continued to hunt minke whales in the North Atlantic since 1993 through a legal ‘objection’ lodged against the ban.
Out of a total 2006/07 annual quota of 1052 minke whales (152 in the distant Jan Mayen Zone, 900 in the easier to reach Norwegian coastal waters), just under half the quota remains untaken at the close of the season: 592 whales have been killed in the coastal area, whilst none were taken from the Jan Mayen quota.
The 2006/07 season has been plagued with controversy. Earlier this year, a whaling vessel captain admitted to breaking regulations by killing a minke whale in an area where whaling is prohibited, in what he said was a in protest at the government’s restrictions on whaling in Norwegian coastal waters.
In July, Norwegian media reported that the Norwegian Food Safety Authority had forced a whale meat retailer to destroy more than a ton of whale meat which had been put on sale without gaining the approval of a Food Safety Authority inspector. The Authority said it feared that at least 300 kilograms of whale meat from the company may have been sold before the breach was uncovered.
“It is remarkable that not only have the Norwegian whalers failed to meet the annual quota for the last five years running, they have only ever met the overall quota once in the last ten years. Yet the Norwegian Government continues to set a quota twice the apparent demand of either the market or the whalers, allocating a portion of the quota to a distant area where the whalers rarely travel to hunt. One explanation for this inconsistency may be that the Government perceives that setting these high quotas raises political pressure at international fora such as CITES and the IWC” said WDCS whaling expert, Philippa Brakes.
Domestic sales of whale meat in Norway have continued to flag, and the largest potential export market, Japan, remains closed. By the end of July this year, the Norwegian market for whale meat was saturated, with just one buyer showing any interest in buying whale meat in August. According to sources in the Norwegian fisheries industry, the situation has become so desperate that whalers risk losses of up to 40 million kroner (nearly US$ 7 million or GBP 3.4 million) over the course of 2007 and 2008.
Apparently concerned that the industry seems to be in a free-fall, the whalers are looking to ever-more improbable ways to push their product. In 2005 the Norwegian whalers tried to promote the whale burger, hoping to cash in on a fast-food raised younger generation. When sales remained flat, the industry moved on to hawking whale meat at summer fairs in the Hvalmobilen, urging people to give whale meat a try. And the latest venture? Trying to promote whale meat as haute cuisine.
A group of master chefs from northern Norway have published a cookbook of whale meat recipes including red wine marinated whale beef, and whale steaks with avocado salsa. The book, financed in part by the whaling industry, and the floundering market might explain recent calls by the whaling industry to use the 2008 Bocuse d’Or culinary competition in Stavanger as a platform to promote whale meat.
[Arthurian legends back in Tintagel to campaign for proper sewage treatment]
[North East Surfing]
Cornishman Sam Bleakley has failed to join his British team-mate Ben Skinner in the third round of the Oxbow World Longboard Tour event in France
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) campaigners have today welcomed Hilary Benn, Secretary Of State for the Environment decision to refuse South West Water permission to carry on dumping raw sewage at Tintagel and Bossiney
SAS campaigners are today delighted that Northumbrian Water’s application to turn off Ultra-Violet disinfection sewage treatment from October to April at Marske-by-the-Sea has been rejected by the Environment Agency (EA)
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