Whaling (follow-up)

Since my dream about whales and consequent blogging about it, I've seen some more articles about Norwegian whaling, most of them in foreign papers, since whaling is more controversial abroad than in Norway.


From BBC. Click for a guide to whales.

Actually, I guess I've only seen 3 articles, but anyways, they're regarding Norway not filling its own quota on whaling. For 2006 the quota was about 1050 animals, but so far only about 450 have been "landed" (funny word). This seems to be due to low sales, and bad weather.

BBC has an article on Norwegian whaling now, and since they're against whaling they think it's nice that Norway is "struggling" with low sales now. Whale-sale is going slow so "Norway has some real headaches this summer."

Real headaches? I don't have blood fresh data, but in 1999 the total revenue from whaling in Norway was 24 million NOK (or 4 million USD). If they're talking about the economical impact, that's not really significant. In 2001 there were 33 whaling boats in the Norwegian fleet. They have a crew of about 5-6. So we're talking about 160 people who probably has this as a secondary income. Norway has a real crisis...

We have a real crisis, and that is overfishing. Our own overfishing, and Russian and Spanish trawlers who are raiding the coast and dumping dead fish in the sea when they get caught by the Coast Guard - endangered fish that they caught with fine-masked nets, which catches everything. And Norway is criticized for intervening.


Photo: Scanpix/Kystvakten

I'm not pro whaling. I think it's stupid to hunt whales when there's no consensus about their number. I think it's stupid to hunt when everyone think we're stupid. And not very good meat. I can live without. And I'm not saying one problem can be overlooked because there are others that are bigger. I just think some things get too much attention on behalf of others.