New Report Details Norway’s Efforts to Promote Whaling

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Governments Must Respond to Norway’s Escalating Whaling, Whale Product Trade

Wash­ing­ton, DC—Nor­way is now the world’s lead­ing whal­ing nation, killing more whales in the past two years than Japan and Ice­land com­bined. A new report released today calls on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to respond to Norway’s sys­tem­at­ic efforts to weak­en man­age­ment rules and improve mar­ket con­di­tions for its whalers.

Frozen in Time: How Mod­ern Nor­way Clings to Its Whal­ing Past, pro­duced by the Ani­mal Wel­fare Insti­tute (AWI), Ocean­Care and Pro-Wildlife, details Norway’s under­min­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC) ban on com­mer­cial whal­ing and expos­es the growth of its over­seas trade in whale prod­ucts. These ship­ments – some of which have tran­sit­ed Euro­pean ports en route to Japan – play a key role in sus­tain­ing the Nor­we­gian whal­ing indus­try.

“As one of the world’s most mod­ern and pros­per­ous coun­tries, Norway’s whal­ing is an anachro­nism,” said Dr. San­dra Altherr, biol­o­gist with ProW­ildlife.  “Slaugh­ter­ing whales to eat and trade has no place in Nor­way and serves only to dimin­ish the country’s inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion.”

The Nor­we­gian gov­ern­ment is fund­ing a num­ber of projects, both to pro­mote domes­tic sales of whale prod­ucts and to devel­op alter­na­tive com­mer­cial prod­ucts derived from whales, includ­ing dietary sup­ple­ments, med­i­cines, and cos­met­ics. In 2015, the Myk­le­bust Hval­pro­duk­ter com­pa­ny announced the launch of a series of new prod­ucts derived from whale oil, includ­ing skin cream.

We were stunned that a Nor­we­gian whal­ing com­pa­ny is active­ly sell­ing health and beau­ty prod­ucts man­u­fac­tured from whale oil,“We were stunned that a Nor­we­gian whal­ing com­pa­ny is active­ly sell­ing health and beau­ty prod­ucts man­u­fac­tured from whale oil,” said Susan Mill­ward, AWI exec­u­tive direc­tor.  “This is not the 1800s. It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that such a mod­ern nation pro­duces skin creams sourced from an inher­ent­ly cru­el indus­try.”

While diplo­mat­ic pres­sure has been brought to bear on Ice­land and inter­na­tion­al legal action has been tak­en against Japan for their whal­ing pro­grams, the report under­scores that Nor­way has large­ly been spared inter­na­tion­al atten­tion and crit­i­cism.

“The IWC has not for­mal­ly com­ment­ed on Norway’s whal­ing since 2001 and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has not pre­sent­ed a demarche to Nor­way since 2006,” stat­ed Sigrid Lüber, Ocean­Care pres­i­dent. “For as long as this remains the case, Nor­way will con­tin­ue to let Ice­land and Japan take the heat for whal­ing and main­tain its busi­ness as usu­al.”

The report details the Nor­we­gian whal­ing industry’s efforts to open Japan’s mar­kets to its whale prod­ucts, and address qual­i­ty con­cerns, as a num­ber of Nor­we­gian whale ship­ments have been reject­ed by Japan due to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Inspec­tors from Kyo­do Sen­paku Kaisha (the com­pa­ny oper­at­ing the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet) have over­seen the pro­cess­ing of whale meat on board a num­ber of Nor­we­gian whal­ing trips as a result.

Frozen in Time con­cludes with rec­om­mend­ed actions that should be tak­en by the IWC and its mem­ber gov­ern­ments to com­pel Nor­way to cease com­mer­cial whal­ing and trade in whale prod­ucts.

Ani­mal Wel­fare Insti­tute

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