Tag Archives: Norway

Norway Continues Whale Slaughter with 2021 Hunting Quota

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Photo by N. Seeliger

Photo by N. SeeligerFebruary 23, 2021

https://awionline.org/press-releases/norway-continues-whale-slaughter-2021-hunting-quota?fbclid=IwAR0nHu8bvFHFt8SnwUVAZVfLTxb23tK04NAbdBbc0u868ol4GksTV_t_THY

Washington, DC—In defiance of a global moratorium on commercial whaling, Norway has again issued an annual kill quota of 1,278 minke whales for the 2021 whaling season.

On Friday, Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen, Norway’s Minister of Fisheries and Seafood, announced the quota, which remains unchanged from last year. Ingebrigtsen said he hopes the “upward trend in demand for whale meat will continue.”

Echoing Ingebrigtsen’s sentiment, the whaling industry claims that demand for whale meat has improved, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, Norway has seen a continuous drop in domestic sales of whale meat in recent years. A survey commissioned by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and others found that only 4 percent of Norwegians polled admitted to eating whale meat “often,” while two-thirds either have never eaten it or only did so “a long time ago.”

Norway’s 2020 whaling season ran from April 1 to September 30. Slightly more than 500 whales were killed, compared to 429 in 2019. This is the highest total since 2016, when nearly 600 whales were killed. Sixteen whaling vessels requested a permit to hunt whales last year, but only 13 participated.

Three whaling vessels were responsible for nearly two-thirds of the whales killed in 2020: the Kato (138 whales), the Reinebuen (102), and the Fiskebank1 (77). As in recent years, the vast majority of the minkes were killed in the Barents Sea (242) and off the coasts of Troms and Finnmark (176).

Last spring, the Norwegian Fisheries Directorate relaxed a number of whaling regulations to encourage additional vessels to engage in whaling. AWI joined with a number of other organizations in contesting the agency’s proposal — to no avail. The government also permitted whalers to forego qualifying tests for rifle shooting.

“Allowing whalers to skip these necessary tests is unacceptable, and could have serious repercussions for animal welfare,” said Kate O’Connell, AWI’s marine animal consultant. “Each year, dozens of whales who are shot by grenade-tipped harpoons do not die instantly; they must be shot by rifles to end their suffering.”

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, yet Norway formally objected and resumed commercial whaling 11 years later. Since that time, the country has killed more than 14,000 minke whales.

In December, the Vestvågøy Fishing Association requested that the Norwegian government support the whaling industry in order to “make it more attractive to catch whales,” including offering whalers an increased cod quota.Media Contact

Margie Fishman, (202) 446-2128, margie@awionline.org

Norway court grants reprieve to seven wolves

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https://phys.org/news/2017-11-norway-court-grants-reprieve-wolves.html

November 21, 2017
There are between 105 and 112 wolves in Norway
There are between 105 and 112 wolves in Norway

A Norwegian court on Tuesday granted a reprieve to seven wolves near Oslo caught in the middle of a battle between environmental activists and sheep farmers.

The Oslo district  granted a request from the Norwegian branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and issued an injunction temporarily stopping the hunt of 12  in the Oslo region—five of which have already been killed—pending a final decision on the matter.

The number of wolves in the Scandinavian country is modest—between 105 and 112 individuals, according to the latest count—and the species is listed as being at risk of extinction. But its current population is above the target set by Norway’s parliament.

This winter, regional wildlife management authorities gave the go ahead to the culling of 50 wolves. While the final number still depends on a government decision, the announcement caused an uproar among animal rights activists.

Tuesday’s court  concerns only Oslo and its surrounding regions in southeastern Norway. The hunting of 14 other wolves will still be allowed in the rest of the country. One of them has already been killed.

WWF Norway has sued the state over its wolf policy, which it argues violates the country’s laws and constitution, as well as the Bern Convention on nature conservation.

The Oslo court will rule on that matter at a later, as yet unspecified date.

According to WWF, wolves account for just 1.3 percent of deaths in sheep flocks, which also fall victim to accidents and other predators such as wolverines, lynx, eagles and bears.

 Explore further: Uproar as Norway paves way for hunting wolves

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-norway-court-grants-reprieve-wolves.html#jCp

Animal rights advocates condemn Norway‘s whale hunt

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http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170405000855

2017-04-05

Korean animal rights activists called on Norway to stop its whale hunt in a rally in Seoul timed with the start of its annual whaling season.

Members of the coalition comprising the Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth, the Korean Animal Welfare Association and the Hotpink Dolphins staged the protest in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Seoul.

A minke whale after it has been caught (Yonhap)

The rally came after the North European country’s six-month whaling season began on Saturday with a quota raised from 880 last year to 999.

They challenged Norway’s assertion that the minke whale is not an endangered species with an estimated 100,000 living off the Norwegian coast where the hunt is due to take place, adding “the number of the animal includes that of minke whales returning to the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean in spring.”

“That many minke whales do not inhabit waters off Norway all the time,” they said. “Ninety percent of those whales slaughtered by Norway every year are female and most of them are pregnant.”

They also said the “No Way, Norway” petition calling for the end of Norway’s whale slaughter has garnered more than 2.6 million signatories.

During Wednesday’s rally, the coalition revealed data from the International Whaling Commission that says about 140,000 minke whales have been hunted in the North Atlantic since the 1940s, 120,000 of which were killed by Norway. (Yonhap)

Norway plans to cull 47 of its remaining 68 wolves

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By Kesavan Unnikrishnan     yesterday in Environment
Norwegian wildlife department is planning to issue hunting permits to shoot up to 47 of an estimated 68 remaining wolves living in wilderness citing harm done to livestock by the carnivores.

 freewallpapersdotcom golden-wolf
Norway, which has more than 200,000 registered hunters, has one of Europe’s smallest wolf populations. Around a quarter of the country’s wolves were killed in culls during the previous years. The animals, most of which are in a designated habitat in the southeast of the country , were nearly wiped out in the last century, and restored in the 1970’s after they gained protected status. The government strictly controls their breeding to protect the livestock.

Many conservation groups have expressed outrage over the decision to cull more than two-thirds of the remaining wolves. The number of wolves to be culled is the highest in a year since 1911. Nina Jensen, the head of the Norwegian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said:

This is mass slaughter. We have not seen anything like this in a hundred years, back when the policy was that all large carnivores were to be eradicated. Shooting 70 percent of the wolf population is not worthy of a nation claiming to be championing environmental causes. People all over the country, and outside its borders, are now reacting.

Farmers have welcomed the hunting of wolves as they are considered a threat to their sheep. Erling Aas-Eng, a regional official for a farming association said:

We find the reason (for the killing) justified and intelligent, especially the potential damage that these wolf packs represent to farming.

Norway’s annual wolf hunting begins on October 1 and ends on March 31. Last year, a whopping 11,571 people signed up for licenses to kill 16 wolves.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/environment/norway-plans-to-cull-47-of-its-remaining-68-wolves/article/475081#ixzz4KdiIiXeb

Norway store caught selling wolfskin rugs

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copyrighted Hayden wolf in lodgepoles

An upmarket furniture shop in Norway has outraged animal rights activists after it was caught selling wolfskin rugs – despite the fact that the wolf is an endangered animal in the country.

The rugs were on sale for 27,800 Norwegian kroner ($4,682) each.

Ingunn Lund-Vang, from the animal rights organization Predator Alliance Norway (Bygdefolk for Rovdyr) on Sunday attacked the shop as “completely unethical and abusive” in a post on Facebook.
“There are no fur farms for wolves so either the wolf was shot somewhere, or it may be from abroad, where it is permitted to hunt wolves with a foot trap,” she told Norway’s VG newspaper.  “This is a barbaric trapping method that involves hours of pain for the animals. If so, it’s even worse.”
Ruben Amundsen, Mobelringen’s general manager, on Sunday moved rapidly to diffuse the scandal, apologizing immediately.  “We have now removed the skin, and it will never be for sale in the shop again,” he said.
He said that he had bought the wolf skins, which had been imported from Canada, at a design fair in Oslo. The skins’ importer, Erik Garthus, told VG that the trade was  “perfectly legal”, stressing that the animal had been shot, not trapped.
According to Norway’s wildlife research organization Rovdata,  the country’s wolf population is now down to less than 37 animals, leading some to fear that the animal could soon be extinct.