Commercial Whaling

Blichfeldt's column is highly misleading and ignores a critical reason for the broad-based effort to reverse Norway's decision to resume commercial whaling. His very first statement is wrong: A future for the world's whales is far from secure. Whales and their habitat continue to be seriously threatened by marine pollution, coastal development, ozone depletion, oil spills, and increased vessel traffic. Commercial whaling is only one of the many hazards facing whales. If Norway chooses to become an environmental outlaw, what will prevent other nations with objections to other conservation treaties, such as to protect endangered species, the ozone layer, and rain forests, from turning their backs on them?

Gray whales cruise through Southern California waters every winter, but this month the migratory giants have shown up so early and in such numbers that they are astounding many longtime observers. Whale spotters stationed at Point Vicente in Rancho Palos Verdes have logged a record 163 sightings so far this December, more than they have seen at this point in 28 years. Although the gray whale-watching season doesn't typically start until the end of December, the unprecedented number of early arrivals is delighting tourists, boaters and divers as the animals travel south along the coast to Mexico.

Iceland said it would resume commercial whaling after a nearly two-decade moratorium, defying a worldwide ban on hunting the mammals for their meat. Fisheries Minister Einar Kristinn Gudfinnsson told Iceland's parliament that his ministry would begin issuing licenses to hunt fin and minke whales. He said the ministry would permit the hunting of nine fin whales and 30 minke whales in the period ending Aug. 31, 2007.

The Chukchi Bible Yuri Rytkheu, translated from the Russian by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse Archipelago: 354 pp., $17 paper "My genealogy, like the tundra root we call the golden root, is enmeshed with its native soil. It does not spread very far below ground, as the permafrost is too near. And yet no hurricane could tear it from its native soil, no frost could wither it…. " These stories, written by the son of the last shaman of the Chukchi people, whose villages once lined the shores of the Bering Sea, are so clear, surefooted, vivid and confident that it's hard to believe the people who passed them on so faithfully could ever be threatened by mere commerce.

Japan's whaling fleet returned from the Antarctic Ocean after killing 330 minke whales in the third season of a controversial research program aimed at counting the whale population. Tokyo hopes to persuade the International Whaling Commission, which imposed a worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, to partially lift the ban. Anti-whaling groups call the research a veiled form of commercial whaling.

The meat from whales killed this year by Japanese whalers for research purposes will be sold for food, a research institute spokesman said today. Japan was pressured into giving up commercial whaling last year, but researchers killed 273 whales in the Antarctic Ocean this year. They said the catch was aimed at determining total numbers, but conservationists said it was a ruse to continue commercial whaling.

The Soviet Union has followed up on informal pledges and officially notified the United States that it has stopped commercial whaling, U.S. Commerce Secretary C. William Verity said in Moscow. "This is a significant international achievement which removes a major obstacle to U.S.-Soviet cooperation in fisheries," Verity said. The Soviets announced in 1985 that they would stop commercial whaling, and a Fishing Ministry official later confirmed that informally.

Your news brief (July 29) regarding an angry Iceland's suspension of whaling (to avoid U.S. trade sanctions) states that her whale-catching is for research purposes. That is not accurate. "Research purposes" should be in quotes to signify a special usage of that term. By calling her commercial whaling ventures "research" Iceland makes unfair use of a loophole in the rules of the International Whaling Commission and attempts to avoid a 5-year worldwide ban on commercial whaling.

After announcing an end to five decades of commercial whaling in Antarctic waters, Japan has disclosed that it plans to send a fleet back to the area late this year to kill 875 whales for "research purposes." That number would equal 45% of the number that Japanese whalers caught in their final commercial season there, which ended in March. After examination by specialists, the research whales would be sold on the market in Japan.

Weighing up to 80 tons and almost twice the length of a school bus, the massive fin whale ? known as the greyhound of the sea for its swimming speed ? was the victim of decades of commercial slaughter that killed the whales by the tens of thousands each year. Then, in 1986, with the species on the brink of extinction, the nations of the world agreed to a moratorium on commercial whaling, and this magnificent animal got a reprieve. Except, that is, in Iceland. Today, over a quarter of a century after the moratorium took effect, Iceland is escalating its hunting and trading of fin whales (and other whale species)

Self-described "whale-huggers" toughed chilling winds on the Santa Monica Pier on Sunday to restart a crusade they thought they'd won and to revise a familiar slogan: Save the Whales Again. "We've been doing this too long, and now we're going to do it all over again. It's very tiresome," said John Perry, a sculptor who in the 1970s campaigned for a whaling ban with a 110-foot-long humpback whale balloon. Perry was among about 120 people at the protest, one of 16 along the California coast targeting a proposal to lift the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium and set legal quotas for Japan, Norway and Iceland, the three nations that still hunt whales.

No one was surprised when conservation organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council challenged the anti-environmental policies of President George W. Bush. But it's a shock to many when we part company with the Obama administration. It happens. And it's happening right now on the question of what to do about commercial whaling and, more specifically, whether to maintain the 25-year-old moratorium against the killing of whales for profit. Last week, the International Whaling Commission announced a proposed 10-year deal, spearheaded by the Obama administration, that would suspend the moratorium and allow whaling countries to kill whales legally for commercial purposes for the first time in a generation.

Japan said it has caught 59 whales -- one short of the maximum allowed by international guidelines -- under a research program that critics say is a cover for commercial whaling. The annual expedition off the port city of Kushiro ended over the weekend after harvesting 59 minke whales, the Fisheries Agency said in a statement. A maximum of 60 is allowed under the research program authorized by the International Whaling Commission. Japan and other pro-whaling nations have been pushing for the IWC to revoke the 1986 ban on commercial hunts amid arguments over the number of whales left in the world's oceans.

They were "pirates" to some, "hostages" to others. But two anti-whaling activists who drew global attention this week by forcibly boarding a Japanese harpoon ship in Antarctic waters have demonstrated how the emotional clash over Japan's annual whale hunt can disrupt even the best international friendships.

The pro-whalers in the Japanese government have a ready answer when asked to explain why the global ban on commercial whaling should be lifted. Whaling is part of Japan's culture, they say. They point to archaeological evidence that whale meat has been a Japanese staple for more than 2,500 years. Respect for the "brave fish" courses through Japanese literature and paintings, they say, and has inspired folk festivals and puppet shows.

THE ICELANDIC WORD HVALREKI means both "beached whale" and "jackpot." This gives you a sense of how dearly the island country views its cetaceans. For centuries, whales have been a huge source of national and gustatory pride. Nonetheless, Iceland has mostly adhered to a 2-decade-old global ban on commercial whaling. Until this week, that is, when the country announced that it would immediately resume hunting whales.