From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:
TOKYO, Japan––The 47th annual meeting of
the International Whaling Commission concluded May 14
with the 1986 ban on commercial whaling still
intact––and Japan and Norway still threatening to follow
Iceland in quitting the treaty that holds the IWC together.
Norway has already announced that it will
resume commercial whaling this summer, risking trade
sanctions from the United States. Meanwhile, Norway
and Japan are already harpooning 100 and 300 minke
whales apiece per year for “research.” The rudimentary
research ends in each nation with the whale meat on
restaurant tables. Claiming that the Southern Hemisphere
minke whale population is up to 760,000 and out of dan-
ger, Japan wants to kill 2,000 a year. The Japanese gov-
ernment is also desperately worried that the IWC will
extend its authority from minkes, the smallest of the great
whales, to smaller cetaceans such as dolphins and porpois-
es. As with the great whales, some species of dolphins
and porpoises have been driven close to extinction by
aggressive huntiing, and public opinion in most of the
developed nations favors protecting them.
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