03/13/2008

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Sea Shepherd To Oppose Icelandic Whaling: Operation Ragnarök May Be Resurrected

With conservation work, victories are almost always temporary. Iceland’s announcement last year that they would not resume whaling was just that--a temporary victory.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ship, the Farley Mowat, was en route to Iceland last summer on a campaign known as Operation Ragnarök to confront Icelandic whalers, when the Icelandic government decided to cease its commercial whaling operations for the year.

Now Iceland is intent upon the resumption of whaling, and the whalers have requested a quota from the Icelandic government of 100 piked (Minke) whales and 150 endangered fin whales.

"We're hoping for a quota for Minke - we've been talking about taking 100 whales," the head of Iceland's Minke whaling association, Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, told BBC News.             

Stefan Asmundsson, a senior official in Iceland's fisheries ministry and its commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), confirmed that the hunt was likely to go ahead.  "We are not expecting any big quotas, but we are likely to see in the relatively near future some quotas for Minke whales.”

Hvalur Inc, an Icelandic whaling company, is hoping to set up an export trade to Japan. Trade in whale meat between Iceland and Japan is currently illegal.

Icelandic environmental groups were critical of the announcement. "It's meaningless, it's useless, it's futile, it's against the spirit of the whaling regime that Iceland says it wants internationally," said Arni Finnsson of the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (INCA).

Fisheries Minister Einar Gudfinnsson is likely to make the final announcement within a month.

Sea Shepherd’s ship, the Farley Mowat, will be in the North Atlantic opposing the Eastern Canadian seal slaughter in April.

“We will be only a week away from Iceland by the end of April,” said Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd. “We would be in a good position to renew Operation Ragnarök if necessary and continue our voyage on to Iceland to confront their illegal whaling operations.”