Norwegian Fisheries Ministry has set the 2009 quota was at 885 minke whales, down from 1,052 in this year’s hunt. It is told that the quotas haven’t been filled in recent years, usually because of bad weather. Whalers need almost perfectly calm seas to spot and harpoon minke whales. According to the ministry the number was decreased because 2009 marks the start of a new five-year management period in which unused quotas from the previous year no longer can be carried over.
Norway angered environmentalists and many countries in 1993 by resuming the hunts in defiance of a 1986 commercial whaling ban imposed by the International Whaling Commission. Reports revealed that Norwegians eat the red meat of whales, but the blubber is now dumped because there is no domestic market for the fatty tissue.
The Greenpeace environment group said in a statement that the hunt is pointless and should be stopped. It is also told that this summer, whalers where called home in the middle of the season due to low demand. It also said that the government’s adherence to whaling is pure symbolic politics. The government claims whaling, done from boats hunters also use for fishing, is important to the economies of some coastal communities.
