Whales may still take a considerable length of time to die and there is widespread agreement, especially when it is compared to methods used to kill farm animals, that whaling is inhumane.
The International Whaling Commission announced how many whales could be taken in any year, however, populations continued to decline. In 1985/6 a worldwide moratorium on whaling was put in place, banning all whaling. Norway, however, "took out a reservation", meaning that they could continue by IWC rules to legally hunt North Atlantic minke whales and, in 1993 and 1994, they killed several hundred. This has caused great dismay in other countries, including the U.K., who have officially objected to this hunt. In UK waters it is illegal to intentionally kill, injure, capture or harass any species of whale or dolphin. However, there is little in international law that can be done about hunting, except control of exports which is covered by CITES (the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species). This is important because the main consumers of whale meat are still the Japanese and, if Norway could legally export whale meat to Japan, this might further promote whaling. In 1993 a shipment of whale meat, labelled as "shrimp", was discovered at Oslo airport in Norway, on route to Asia.
Why does Norway think that it's ok for them to hunt whales?
