During the official NGO session today (the fourth day of the IWC meeting), Siri Martinsen, Director of NOAH – for dyrs rettigheter, spoke on behalf of NOAH and WSPA member society Dyrebeskyttelsen Norge. One of the key issues she presented was the cruelty of Norwegian whaling, as the recent investigation by WSPA, NOAH and Dyrebeskyttelsen Norge has clearly shown.
Siri told the meeting: “I wish to briefly refer to a film we captured of a Norwegian whale hunt last month. The film shows an experienced whaler trying to hit and kill a whale under perfect weather conditions - and failing to succeed. We have consulted with external veterinarians and based on the footage the most likely scenario is that the whale was indeed struck and lost. The whaling vessel claims that the whale was not hit, but both scenarios illustrate the same main point: whalers shooting a moving animal from a moving platform cannot reliably achieve an accurate lethal harpoon shot. The margins for error in commercial whaling are simply too high, and so is the suffering inflicted.”
As this year’s meeting is nearing its end, everyone at WSPA is relieved that the compromise deal, which would have condemned 13,000 whales to death over the next 10 years, was not adopted and the commercial whaling ban remains intact.
We’ll be using the coming months to prepare for the IWC Animal Welfare and Ethics workshop, proposed yesterday by the UK delegation. And we will be working hard to ensure that governments around the world act to protect whales, not whaling.
Emily Reeves, WSPA
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