Norwegian whalers catch record 634 whales in 2002
Date: 04-Oct-02
Country: NORWAY
Author: Inger Sethov
Some 892 tonnes of minke whale meat will be sold to Norwegians who mostly eat whale meat fried. Another 63 tonnes of creamy blubber, disliked by Norwegians, will be frozen and stored in the hope it can be exported as a delicacy to Japan, the group said.
Norway, defying a global moratorium, resumed the hunts in 1993 and started exports to Iceland this year for the first time since 1988.
"It's our 10th anniversary since we took up whaling again and we managed to set a record. That's good news," Rune Froevik, of the pro-whaling lobby group High North Alliance, told Reuters.
But he said whalers, under pressure from uncertainty over exports, had failed to meet their annual quota of 671 animals for 2002, as set by Norwegian fisheries authorities.
"It has been a turbulent season with problems in the on-land production line and worries about exports," Froevik said.
Norway agreed last year to permit exports of whale meat and products. But exports to Japan have been hit by a bureaucratic tangle and by Japanese consumers' worries that Norwegian whale meat contains toxic industrial chemicals.
The hunting season was originally scheduled from mid-May to end-August, but was extended until September 20 in the North Sea area, since the 34 whaling boats off Norway's coast had failed to fill their quota.
Last year, whalers exceeded the quota by three animals, killing 552 animals compared with a quota of 549. At the height of Norwegian whaling before any bans, they killed about 2,000 a year.
Minke whales are shot with harpoons containing a high-explosive shell, which whalers say kills most of the huge animals within seconds. The whales are then dragged onto the boats and transported on ice to land.
About 200-300 tonnes of blubber is stacked away in freezers around Norway, waiting to be exported to Japan.
"Most of the blubber is dumped in the sea off Norway because there is no market for it," Per Rolandsen, a spokesman for the fisheries interest group Norsk Raafisklag, told Reuters.
Hundreds of tonnes of old blubber - from the 1996 and 1997 seasons - have been burnt in Norway due to a lack of demand, leaving only blubber less than two years old in storage, Rolansen said.