Dirty tactics at the IWC

26/06/2009

Even though commercial whaling was ‘banned’ in 1986, over 30,000 whales have been killed since then in commerical, scientific and aboriginal subsistence hunts.

Sadly, some countries do not play fair.

At this year's meeting of the International Whaling Commission, the USA showed their support for the Danish application to expand its Greenlandic aboriginal hunts to include humpback whales (even though the validity of these hunts came into questioned last year, when it was discovered that meat from these hunts was sold commercially in supermarkets).

Whilst New Zealand and other nations were willing to oppose this request, the decision has been defered to another IWC meeting to be held before Christmas 2009.

The proposal should be rejected as it:

• is based on insufficient, contradictory and unvalidated data

• would blur the distinctions between commercial and aboriginal subsistence whaling

• provides no convincing needs statement

• lacks a key component to assign quotas based on subsistence needs

President Obama has pledged to make decisions based on sound science. As the new US team appointed by President Obama takes full control of the US IWC position, we call upon them to review the position taken on this issue.

The lives of these whales hangs in the balance so please do all you can to help us protect them. Please take urgent action now. Sign our petition today. Every email counts.