Welcome to the World Council of Whalers
Site updated: April 1st, 2008

Around the world, many coastal communities rely on the cultural, nutritional and economic sustenance whaling provides. In most cases, their whaling traditions and techniques have developed over centuries. In all cases, their concern for the health of their communities is vitally linked to their concern for the health of the whale populations.

Whaling peoples today are a far cry from the industrial whalers of the past century, who slaughtered entire whale populations to feed a global demand for whale oil and bone. Today, from skin boats, small coastal fishing vessels, and dugout canoes, residents of small, often isolated coastal communities around the world subsist wholly or in part on the sustainable, small-scale harvest of cetaceans. Whaling feeds their families, their communities, their economies, and their cultures. For many, centuries of reliance on the products of the hunt have created a vital nutritional, cultural, spiritual and ecological link between whaling peoples and whales. For all, the quantity and quality of food a whale provides remains essential to their overall health and subsistence.

Whaling communities are widespread, in many regions: the Arctic, the Caribbean, Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific. In countries such as Canada, the Commonwealth of Dominica, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the United States, communities and cultures are sustained by the small-scale, sustainable harvest of cetaceans.

Among the cetaceans hunted are bowhead whale, Bryde's whale, fin whale, humpback whale, gray whale, minke whale, and sperm whale; these are often referred to as International Whaling Commission (IWC) whales" (they are among the 12 species of large whales acknowledged to fall under the management authority of the IWC). Other species (non-IWC whales) are hunted as well, and include the beluga, narwhal, Baird's beaked whale, pilot whale species, pygmy killer whales, false killer whalers, harbor porpoise, Risso's dolphin, and various other species of dolphins. These represent only a few of the more than 80 cetacean species in the world today; a common misconception is the notion that "whale" is a singular category. In fact, there is a tremendous diversity of whale and dolphin species, each with particular habitats, behaviors, and population dynamics.