Whaling

[1] Coastal communities around the world have long histories of subsistence use of cetaceans, by dolphin drive hunting and by harvesting drift whales.

Iceland, Japan, Norway, First Nations people in Canada, Native Americans in the USA, and the Danish dependencies of the Faroe Islands and Greenland continue to hunt in the 21st century.

With respect to the populations of Antarctic minke whales, as of January 2010, the IWC states that it is "unable to provide reliable estimates at the present time" and that a "major review is underway by the Scientific Committee.

[18]The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was set up under the ICRW to decide hunting quotas and other relevant matters based on the findings of its Scientific Committee.

A coalition of anti-whaling nations offered a compromise plan that would allow these countries to continue whaling but with smaller catches and under close supervision.

[21][22] Opponents of the compromise plan want to see an end to all commercial whaling but are willing to allow subsistence-level catches by indigenous peoples.

Large ships and boats make a tremendous amount of noise that falls into the same frequency range of many whales.

In 1994, the IWC reported evidence from genetic testing[34] of whale meat and blubber for sale on the open market in Japan in 1993.

[39] According to Ray Gambell, then-Secretary of the IWC, the organization had raised its suspicions with the former Soviet Union, but it did not take further action because it could not interfere with national sovereignty.

High levels have been found in the Caribbean[41] (where people are advised not to exceed one serving every three weeks),[42] in the Faroe Islands,[43] and in Japan.

In death, their carcasses can become part of a whale fall and sink to the bottom, bringing their carbon with them to help form a temporary ecosystem at the ocean floor.

Hunts receive subsidies, but they continue as a tradition rather than for the money, and the economic analysis noted that whale watching may be an alternate revenue source.

[54] The traditional whale hunt, known as grindadráp, is regulated by Faroese authorities but not by the IWC, which does not claim jurisdiction over small cetaceans.

In 2021 the Sermersooq municipal council banned whaling in Nuup Kangerlua, one of the largest fjords in inhabited areas of Greenland.

[citation needed] German whaling ships in the mid to late 19th century would generally not be staffed with experienced sailors but rather with members of more wealthy farming communities, going for short trips to Scandinavia during the end of spring and beginning of summer, when their labor was not required on the fields.

Many journeys would not lead to any whales caught, instead seal- and polar bear skins were brought back to shore.

[70] Lamalera, on the south coast of the island of Lembata, and Lamakera on neighbouring Solor, are the two remaining Indonesian whaling communities.

In 1973, the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sent a whaling ship and a Norwegian whaler to modernize their hunt.

According to the FAO report, the Lamalerans "have evolved a method of whaling which suits their natural resources, cultural tenets and style.

[74] Traditional Lamaleran whaling used wooden fishing boats built by a group of local craftsmen clan called ata molã, and the fishermen will mourn the "death" of their ships for two months.

"[76][77][78] The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has attempted to disrupt Japanese whaling in the Antarctic since 2003 but eventually ceased this activity in 2017 due to little achievement in creating change.

[84] In September 2018, Japan chaired the 67th IWC meeting in Brazil and attempted to pass a motion to lift the moratorium on commercial whaling.

The Soviet Union's harvest of over 534,000 whales between the 1930s and the 1980s has been called "one of the most senseless environmental crimes of the 20th century" by Charles Homans of the Pacific Standard.

In regard to economics, the Soviet Union transformed from a "rural economy into an industrial giant" by disregarding the sustainability of a resource to fill high production targets.

[96] Currently, the indigenous Chukchi people in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East are permitted under IWC regulation to take up to 140 gray whales from the North-East Pacific population each year.

[97] There are no recent data on catches in the Arctic Ocean or Bering Sea, where about 60 belugas per year were caught in the early 1980s.

[99][100] Their quota allows up to four humpback whales per year using only traditional hunting methods of hand-thrown harpoons in small, open sailboats.

In the 2012 meeting of the IWC, delegates from several anti-whaling countries, and environmental groups, spoke out against it, calling it "artisanal whaling out of control".

[100] The meat is sold commercially and 82% of Bequia residents consume it at least occasionally, though it is subject to high levels of methyl mercury.

Due to a loud global outcry, South Korea abandoned this plan and has not resumed any form of whaling program.