Press Releases
29 September 2000 - World Council Condemns Large-Scale Whaling
The World Council of Whalers today reiterated its stand against any proposals for the resumption of large-scale whaling.
The council's chairman, Chief Tom Mexsis Happynook, said today from Victoria, Canada, that the World Council of Whalers would not be seeking to re-establish large-scale whaling when holding its 3rd Assembly and Conference in Nelson in November.
"The unsustainable, unregulated harvesting practices of the past must not be repeated in the future. Today's whaling is based on small-scale, sustainable hunts by indigenous or coastal peoples," he said.
"Whaling peoples today are a far cry from the industrial whalers of last century who slaughtered whale populations to feed global demand for whale oil and bone. That is not what occurs today, and whaling peoples are committed to ensuring it does not occur again," Chief Happynook said.
Around the world today, a large and diverse number of countries and indigenous groups depend on cultural, nutritional and economic sustenance that whaling provides.
"From skin boats, dugout canoes and small, coastal fishing boats, many small and often isolated communities engage in small-scale, sustainable whaling. The majority of these communities are in places where few crops grow," Chief Happynook said.
Chief Happynook expressed concern that a small number of political representatives from Western industrialised nations, misled by the powerful lobbying of the protest industry, routinely misrepresented the size and scope of contemporary whaling practices to their constituents.
"Norway takes 753 Minke whales a year out of a North and Central Atlantic stock of 184,000 , a harvest that represents less than one percent of that population. Norway's whale fishery is conducted within stringent guidelines, and is done strictly for the domestic market."
"Inuit people from Canada take between 600 - 650 beluga, 200 - 250 narwhals annually, and have taken five bowhead between 1991 and 1998," he said.
Chief Happynook said there were two types of whaling practised in Japan. "First, there are small-type coastal whalers, each year taking 54 Baird's beaked whale out of a population of 5870, 100 pilot whales from a population of 84,000 and 20 Risso's dolphin.
"In addition, Japan is mandated by the International Whaling Commission to carry out scientific research for the IWC's Scientific Committee. Under this programme, Japan harvests less than 0.01 percent of a combined North Pacific and Antarctic Minke whale population of 790,000.
"The numbers speak for themselves: Japanese whaling is small-scale, and in no way represents a threat to the health of whale populations," he said.
Chief Happynook said that despite Scientific Committee recommendation that the North Pacific Minke population could sustain a harvest of 200 Minke whales a year, the IWC continues to impose zero quota to the small-type whalers of Japan.
For Inuit people in Greenland, who have depended on small-scale whaling for over 4000 years, the IWC moratorium has brought particular hardship. "Over the last century, Greenland Inuit watched as large-scale European industrial whalers decimated whale populations carefully managed by their people for thousands of years.
" Although Inuit today take a small number of Minke whales (176 from a stock of 86,700), pilot whales (an average of 150 from a stock of 780,000), and Narwhal and Beluga whales, the moratorium bars them from engaging in the small-scale sustainable commerce in whale products essential to their cultural and economic subsistence, creating unnecessary and undue hardship for a people who by virtue of their geography, depend on the sea for their survival.
According to Chief Happynook, the health of the tiny coastal and indigenous whaling communities and cultures of the world is vitally linked to the health of the whale populations. "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," he said.
Chief Happynook said: "The era of large-scale industrial whaling is over. When we speak of whaling today, we are in fact speaking about the small-scale, sustainable practices of ancient cultures and coastal communities, and not the large-scale, unsustainable harvest of an industry long past."