whale-for-sale

WHALE FOR SALE THE GLOBAL TRADE IN DEAD WHALES• January 2014: A London man pleads guilty to three counts of illegally trading ivory, whale anddolphin bone and other items on eBay, following investigations by the Metropolitan Police’sWildlife Crime Unit. He is fined a total of £1,375.• January 2014: WDC helps expose Norwegian minke whale meat on sale illegally to thousandsof visitors at Berlin‘s annual Green Week food and agricultural fair. We notify the authorities andunsold meat is confiscated and an investigation launched.NB Relevant citations may be found under each country section.Early whaling was driven by demand for oil to make candles and light lamps (as well as baleen forcorsets). Over a million whales were killed for their oil, which fed increasing global demand for a hostof products including soap, animal feed, insecticides, watch and camera lubricants, cosmetics andmargarine. By the 1960s, even the aerospace industry found a use for whale oil as a lubricant.Competition was so intense between rapidly-industrializing whaling nations and cheating sowidespread, that tens of thousands of whales were killed each year - well beyond sustainablelevels. The slaughter continued into the early 1980s, when the international community eventuallyacknowledged the devastation that whaling had wrought on whales over previous centuries. In1982, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) decided to adopt a commercial whaling ban(or ‘moratorium’) which was to be implemented by the 1985/1986 season. The Convention onInternational Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) followed the IWC’s leadand banned all international commercial trade in whale products.Whilst the majority of commercial whaling nations complied with the whaling ban, Norway, Japan andIceland, as well as other countries, took out reservations or objections or exploited loopholes in orderto continue hunting, seemingly just for meat. In fact, the whaling nations were quietly using the coverof their ongoing hunts to research and develop new uses for whale oil and other products.Whilst this report focuses primarily upon commercial trade in large whale species, we also outlinewhales and dolphins killed during subsistence hunts (including abuses of the rules governing suchhunts) as well as referencing killing and trade of smaller whale and dolphin species by a host ofcountries.2500Great whales killed after the moratorium20001500100050001987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012Scientific permit Under objection ASW Illegal catchMore than 35,500 whales were killed during this period including bowhead, Bryde’s, fin, grey, humpback, minke, sei and sperm whales{ 6 }