Greenland seeks higher whale hunt quota from the IWC

On behalf of its territory Greenland, the Danish government has submitted a proposal to the 59th International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting for a renewal of Greenland’s Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling (ASW) quota that would see a dramatic expansion in the number of animals hunted including the addition of two new species.

The USA, Russia and St Vincent and the Grenadines have also submitted proposals to renew their five year ASW quotas.

In the past few days the United States has tried to negotiate to present the separate ASW proposals as a package that would be voted on together. The other proposals are not seeking any increase in quotas and the Scientific Committee has advised that the catch limits requested would be sustainable over the next five years. However, the Greenland proposal appears to have broken the deal.

The Scientific Committee cannot guarantee that the increased quota for west Greenland minke whales would be sustainable for more than one year; it has not finalised its assessment of bowhead whales, and there are far too many unanswered questions about why Greenland needs so much more whale meat. It appears now that all ASW quotas will be voted on separately tomorrow and that Greenland will have to defend itself without the ‘protection’ of the other applicants.

Greenland is seeking to increase its hunt from 175 to 200 west Greenland minke whales per year; to increase its fin whale hunt from a voluntary cap of 10 to 19 per year; and to add 10 humpbacks per year and 2 bowhead whales (neither of which have been hunted in Greenland for decades).

Greenland argues that, based on an increase in its population, a total of 670 tonnes of whale meat is now needed. In some documents it even argues that it needs 740 tonnes are needed, almost 300 more tonnes that it currently takes. But the population in Greenland is actually declining.

Furthermore, Greenland does not report to the IWC that it kills more than 4000 narwhals, belugas, killer whales, pilot whales and harbour porpoises every year which go toward meeting its claimed need for whale meat.

Neither does it admit that a good deal of the whale meat hunted is sold by the hunters to a state owned company that sells it all across Greenland – far beyond the communities whose subsistence needs the quota is intended to serve.

Niki Entrup of WDCS, attending the IWC meeting in Anchorage, comments: “While Denmark has publicly stated it wants to normalise the IWC and bring the opposing pro- and anti-whaling sides together, it does completely the opposite in practice; prevailing over a quota application that challenges the very integrity of the aboriginal whaling category and could split the meeting to its core”.

Sue Fisher of WDCS comments further, “Greenland has made it impossible for all the ASW quotas to be voted on together. After weeks, probably months, of negotiations, it has apparently worn down the cooperation shown by the other aboriginal whaling countries. It now has to face the music alone”.

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Source: WDCS

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