WWF IN CHILE DEBATES COMMERCIAL WHALING

[Judi Lynn]

WWF IN CHILE DEBATES COMMERCIAL WHALING


(October 21, 2006) Just moments before the start of a World Wildlife Fund conference on whale conservation, held in southern Chile’s Region X, breaking news from Iceland caused a big splash: the Nordic country announced Tuesday it will resume commercial whaling.

The 66-member International Whaling Commission (IWC) is sharply divided over the proposal to lift the 1986 ban on whale hunting. Exactly half supported the measure in a vote this June, with 32 voting no, including Chile, and one abstention.

In order for the ban to be lifted, the pro-whaling coalition, with Japan at its helm, would need the support of three-quarters of the IWC.

“That’s not going to happen,” said Chilean researcher Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete from the Blue Whale Center in Valdivia.

In his opinion, sustainable whaling is “almost utopic, since we’re not talking about fish, but rather mammals that have one sole offspring,” he said, and whose gestation period lasts one year.
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http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=11911&topic_id=1

[xchrom]

1. for me -- this is a reason to fight.

NO WHALING!

[pooja]

2. What about inuit tribes that use 1 whale to feed their entire village

for the year? Is it wrong then?