Greenland gets whale hunting permit, Iceland's commercial program criticized
Greenland gets whale hunting permit, Iceland's commercial program criticized
The International Whaling Commission has approved a hunting quota of 207 kills per year for aboriginal Greenlanders. Meanwhile, several countries have criticized Iceland for its commercial whaling program.
Date 16.09.2014
Members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted in favor of Greenland's proposed whale hunting quota at a summit in Portoroz, Slovenia on Monday.
Valid from 2015 through 2018, the proposal will allow the country's aborigines to take 176 minke, 19 fin, 10 humpback and two bowhead whales per year. Critics of the quota argue that much of the meat meant for the local Inuit population would be sold off instead.
"More than 800 whales were condemned today just in the Greenland vote," Wendy Higgins of the Humane Society International (HIS) told the AFP news agency. The Animal Welfare Institute voiced concern that "the new IWC quota will give Greenland more whale meat than its native people need for nutritional subsistence and that the surplus will continue to be sold commercially, including to tourists."
At the IWC's last gathering in 2012, a similar bid for a larger Greenland quota was voted down.
More:
http://www.dw.de/greenland-gets-whale-hunting-permit-icelands-commercial-program-criticized/a-17923586
