Iceland had first been thwarted by rough seas, then by onlookers whose boats prevented the country's whaling ships from carrying out their deadly task. But on Monday, August 18, the island nation killed its first whale in 14 years, apparently a young 17-foot minke.
On Tuesday, following confirmation of the kill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency under the Commerce Department, launched a review of whether the kill undermines the effectiveness of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) convention on the regulation of whaling.
Iceland claims its recently announced minke whale hunt is for "scientific" purposes, which the IWC convention allows, but the United States and others say that the country's scientific aims can be accomplished with non-lethal means. What's more, IWC members passed an official resolution earlier this year condemning Iceland's scientific whaling program as inconsistent with the goals of the commission.
Before the Monday killing of the young minke whale, The HSUS and other animal-protection groups had sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans, asking him to invoke the Pelly Amendment on confirmation that Iceland kills its first whale. NOAA's review is the first step in the process to invoke the amendment.
The Pelly Amendment to the U.S. Fisherman's Protective Act of 1967 requires the secretary of commerce to certify to the president when foreign nationals are diminishing the effectiveness of an international conservation program. The president may then authorize the secretary of treasury to impose trade sanctions.
If Iceland is certified under the amendment, President George W. Bush could authorize a variety of sanctions, from trade sanctions to U.S. boycotts of meetings hosted by Iceland. A NOAA spokesman told Agence France Presse that "there is no set time frame [for certification]." However, once certification occurs, President Bush has 60 days to decide what sanctions, if any, to impose on Iceland.
In the meantime, Iceland plans to hunt 38 minke whales before September 30. The country made that announcement on August 6, despite the fact that in June the IWC officially condemned Iceland's "scientific" plan to kill 500 whales for a two-year "study."
"News of the death of this young minke whale is just the latest in a long series of similarly heartbreaking announcements from Iceland," noted Kitty Block, United Nations and treaties special counsel for The HSUS, who has been following the country's attempts to resume whaling for years. "Iceland has stated numerous times that it intends to resume full-scale commercial whaling on all species in the near future."
Iceland's plan to kill minke whales to study their stomach contents has drawn international criticism for its shaky scientific premise. (Iceland, like Japan, believes that studying what whales eat will help prove the unsubstantiated theory that these animals are consuming their way through the world's fish stocks.) Britain's fisheries minister told the Associated Press that "Iceland's claim that data are needed on the amount of fish that whales eat is wholly unjustified." A U.S. delegate to the IWC echoed the British sentiment: "We oppose it. We're disappointed," Rolland Schmitten told the AP. "It's not relevant science, it's not necessary."
Iceland's resumed whaling could have other economic impacts beyond any potential trade sanctions. Whale-watching operators in Iceland believe that any resumption of whaling will seriously harm their fast-growing industry.
From April to October 2002, some 62,050 people (30% of all visitors to the country) went whale watching. Those in the business believe that whale watching and whale killing cannot co-exist. As one whale-watching operator has said, "What is most sad about Iceland's plans to resume whaling is that the most friendly whales, the ones that approach the whale-watching vessels, will be the first to die."
The Back Story
How Iceland put itself into the international crosshairs is a story in itself. Iceland was a member of the IWC when the commercial whaling moratorium was passed in 1982. Because the country did not then object to the moratorium, it became bound by the ban. The moratorium officially went into effect in 1986, but Iceland did not stop "scientifically" whaling until 1989 when Japan stopped buying the country's whale products due to worldwide pressure. By 1992, Iceland decided to withdraw from the IWC in protest over the ban.
However, in 2000, Iceland decided that it wanted to resume whaling and sought to rejoin the IWC, causing anti-whaling nations and onlookers to believe the country was only trying to dismantle the convention from within. Two years later, in October 2002 at a controversial and now contested intercessional meeting in the United Kingdom, Iceland officially rejoined the IWC. But the nation insisted on rejoining with an objection to the commercial whaling moratorium, despite the majority opinion of IWC members and many legal authorities who believed such an objection was illegal.
Iceland wasted no time in announcing its intentions. At the 2003 IWC meeting in Berlin, Iceland proposed to hunt 500 whales over the course of a two-year study, exploiting a loophole in the convention that allows countries to kill whales for scientific purposes—the same loophole exploited by Japan. IWC commissioners did not buy it.
Commissioners "expressed deep concern that the provision permitting special-permit whaling enables countries to conduct whaling for commercial purposes despite the moratorium on commercial whaling," according to the official condemnation, "and that the whaling operations represent an act contrary to the spirit of the moratorium on commercial whaling and the will of the commission."
Such strong language obviously did not stop Iceland from moving ahead with its whaling, even if this year's plans are significantly scaled down from the country's earlier intentions to kill 250 whales. Iceland has not backed away from its plans to kill 250 whales next year, and some wildlife advocates believe this year's hunt is a mere test to measure the public's ability to stomach large-scale whaling in Iceland.
What You Can Do
We need to stop Iceland before its whaling becomes entrenched, as is the case in Japan and Norway. Iceland must honor the IWC commercial moratorium and abandon all plans to resume full-scale whaling. Please let your federal legislators know that Iceland's actions are unacceptable, and encourage them to communicate your concerns to Iceland.
Furthermore, please contact the Icelandic embassy and let the country's officials know that you are deeply troubled by Iceland's whaling.
Embassy of Iceland
1156 15th Street NW
Suite 1200
Washington D.C. 20005-1704
Phone: 1-202-265-6653
Fax: 1-202-265-6656
E-mail: icemb.wash@utn.stjr.is
