Norway has announced a 28% increase of its annual whaling quota to 1,278 whales in a bid to revive the declining hunt amid international controversy.
Whalers have for several years failed to meet the quotas set by Oslo and the number of whaling boats has plunged.
“I hope the quota and the merging of fishing zones will be a good starting point for a good season for the whaling industry,” fisheries minister Per Sandberg said.
Norway and Iceland are the only countries in the world to authorise whaling. Japan also hunts whales, but officially does so for scientific research purposes, even though a large share of the whale meat ends up on dinner plates.
Norway does not consider itself bound by a 1986 international moratorium on whaling, to which it formally objected.
The country resumed its minke whale hunt in 1993. According to Oslo, there are more than 100,000 minkes in Norwegian waters.
Yet whaling appears to have fallen out of favour. While there were around 350 whaling vessels in 1950, there were just 11 in 2017, a number almost halved from the previous year.
Source : theguardian
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