Tutu Launches New Global Anti-Whaling Campaign
Date: 28-Nov-08
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Archbishop Desmond Tutu addresses the audience after being honored during a Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights gala in New York November 19, 2008.
Photo: Lucas Jackson
CAPE TOWN - Archbishop Desmond Tutu launched a new global anti-whaling campaign Thursday, which seeks to ban all whaling.
"What makes it even worse is the brutality (of whale hunting)," said Tutu, a Nobel peace laureate, at the launch.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), which backs the campaign, says whales are usually hunted with grenade-tipped harpoons that explode inside the animal.
The world imposed a moratorium on all whale hunts in 1986 after many species were driven toward extinction by decades of exploitation for meat, oil and whalebone.
Japan, Norway and Iceland still hunt minke whales, arguing they are plentiful.
The campaign has other high profile supporters including British actor Pierce Brosnan.
(Reporting by Wendell Roelf)
