Hon Chris Carter
Minister of Conservation

28 August, 2007 Media Statement

Minister welcomes stop to Iceland’s whale hunt

Conservation Minister Chris Carter today welcomed news Iceland had stopped its whale hunt because of the lack of demand for whale meat.

Iceland’s fisheries minister Einar K Guofinnsson said this week it made no sense to issue new whaling quotas if the market for whale meat was not profitable.

“New Zealand, along with other anti-whaling nations, has said for some time the demand for whale meat was not as strong as pro-whaling nations such as Japan were asserting,” Mr Carter said.

It is almost a year since Iceland controversially ended its ban on commercial whaling to allow up to 30 minke whales and nine fin whales to be hunted for the first time since 1986.

But after seven minke whales and seven fin whales were killed the hunt was stopped due to lack of demand for the meat in Iceland’s domestic market and stalled negotiations over Iceland getting access to the Japanese market.

“Japan is believed to have 40,000 tonnes of whale meat in storage in spite of a move to serve it in lunches in Japanese schools and using it in pet food,” Mr Carter said.

“It appears obvious there is almost no market for whale meat so if the Japanese government will not listen to the conservation argument to stop whaling, perhaps Iceland’s official recognition that there is no market for this meat could finally encourage Japan to stop its expanded ‘scientific’ whaling programme and leave the Antarctic whales in peace.”

Under Japan’s scientific whaling programme, Japan hunts humpback whales, the favoured species for whale watching, and two years ago doubled the number of minke and fin whales that could be killed.

Mr Carter led the New Zealand delegation to this year’s International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage, Alaska where New Zealand joined other conservation-minded countries in strongly condemning Japan’s actions.

ENDS

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