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Despite low numbers, Norwegian whaling continues

© Matt Villano

Norway's 175 or so whale hunters say they have had a tough season at sea, with choppy water camouflaging their prey and anti-whaling protests marked by gunfire and boat collisions. But according to a report published this week in The New York Times, their biggest problem, may be the low consumption of whale meat by their countrymen. For the first time since Norway defied the International Whaling Commission and resumed its commercial hunt in 1993, the number of minke whales killed was lower than that of the year before as the season wound down. The final tally, announced on Aug. 3, was 589 - 36 fewer than last year and 164 short of the limit set by the Norwegian authorities.

For many whaling crews the season effectively ended on July 1, when processing facilities announced that they would take no more whale meat. Supermarkets in Oslo and other cities had trouble persuading shoppers to pay up to $10 per pound for the dark, oily meat that in previous decades was popular as a relatively inexpensive substitute for beef.

A spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace, which carried out its most combative campaign last month against Norwegian whaling in five years, said the weak domestic market was a sign that the industry is obsolete. Norwegian whalers, however, used it as grounds to step up their demand to export meat to other whale-eating countries. A Greenpeace spokesman, Frode Preym, said his organization's complaint has nothing to do with the minke whale's numbers or the notion that whales are intelligent. "We are making the rational argument that Norway's defiance of international agreements could tempt other nations to follow suit," Preym said. Japan hunts whales for what it calls research purposes. A variety of aboriginal groups have received dispensation to conduct small-scale traditional hunts. But only Norway has resumed commercial whaling. Protests have been low-key in recent years, but this season Greenpeace sent two ships and a half-dozen semi-inflatable motorboats to whaling sites in the North Sea. The Norwegian Coast Guard sent its own flotilla to enforce a security zone around the whalers. A Coast Guard patrol boat and a smaller Greenpeace vessel collided near the whaling vessel Villduen in June, sending an activist to the hospital with a broken arm, broken pelvis, broken fingers and internal injuries. On July 12, when a Greenpeace semi-inflatable craft carrying a member of British Parliament came between a harpooned whale and the whaling vessel Kato, three gunshots rang out. The Kato's skipper, Ole Mindor Myklebust, said in a mobile telephone interview from sea that he fired his high-caliber rifle in the direction of the whale, which he said was showing signs of life.

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