Iceland breaks the 21-year-old whale hunting ban
You can read the news article below. But my first point is that though one may think of Iceland as a frozen dot in the North Atlantic, the U.S. has a $2 billion trade with that dot. The official stance of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce is that Iceland made the wrong choice to break the whaling ban. Now the U.S. is backing off saying that the limits of the take will be small enough. But, since there is no other reason to kill these magnificent mammals (second largest whale) except to make steaks out of them, I would suggest that zero take would be about the right size. Since we have trade with Iceland, we should pressure them to stick to their aluminum and high tech industries and leave the whales alone.
The following is from the U.S. Embassy in Iceland:
Bilateral Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) activity is picking up rapidly, and within about five years, U.S. investment in Iceland will likely approach $2 billion, primarily in the aluminum industry. Icelandic investment in the U.S. has also picked up of late, with major pharmaceutical, biomedical, and fish-related operations acquired by Icelandic firms.
Heres the story about Iceland's new whaling policy:
Iceland breaks 21-year-old whale hunting ban
Reykjavic argues that whales are plentiful in the North Atlantic
Updated: 2:26 a.m. PT Oct 22, 2006
OSLO, Norway - Icelandic whalers broke a 21-year-old international ban on whaling on Saturday when they harpooned the first fin whale since the moratorium was imposed in 1985, a whalers’ spokesman said.Fin whales are rated an endangered species on a “Red List” compiled by the World Conservation Union but Iceland says they are plentiful in the north Atlantic.
Reykjavik decided Tuesday to catch nine fin whales and 30 minke whales in the year to Aug. 31, 2007, despite the 1985 moratorium imposed by the International Whaling Commission.
Read the entire report at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15363210/
Read about the fight between finwhales and humans from a scientific point of view at http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/Fin_Whale
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