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previous whale page subsequent whale page home January 10, 2002 Fund and HSUS sue to stop Makah whale slaughter The Fund for Animals and the Humane Society of the United States are suing the federal government to stop the Makah whale hunt on the basis it violates the National Environmental Policy Act by having failed to study the effect of the hunt on the environment and nearby residents. Because the Makah are now authorized to kill at anytime of the year, there is a greater chance of their killing resident whales with unknown effects on the inshore ecosystem. The longer season extends the risk of people on the shore being killed by high-powered rifle fire. The Makah are requesting $1.9 million dollars of taxpayers' money to engage in a slaughter that most Americans and people around the world oppose. The government had ignored a previous court ruling that the hunt violates existing law. December 13, 2001 Norwegian whale-processing plant destroyed by fire, ship sunk A fire of as yet undetermined origin destroyed the Olavsen brothers' whale processing and distribution plant at Lofoten on December 11. On December 6, the whaling ship, Nihella, burned and sank while moored to a dock in Lofoten. These fires, described as "very suspicious" by a whaling spokesman, were reminiscent of a fire that sank the moored whaler Nybraena during the Christmas season in 1992. The Nybraena, subsequently raised and repaired, was moored next to the packing plant and damaged again by the fire that leveled the plant. December 13, 2001 Norwegian whaling is probably decimating the minke population which whalers claim to be abundant and able to sustain a catch of 2,500 animals a year. The government has reduced the quota for the last three years from 753 to 655 to 549. Even so, the whalers did not fill their quota last year, an indication that minkes are less abundant than they purport. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society charges that the minke population may be in serious decline ( http://www.seashepherd.org/issues/whales/norwaysbiglie.html ). (Sorry, link won't take. Please copy and paste.) Whaling is a business in Norway. The whalers are paid for the amount of whale flesh they unload at the processing plants. As the number of whales they can legally kill is limited, it behooves them to kill only the biggest whales. The biggest whales in any pod are usually the pregnant ones. Killing them is practically the equivalent of killing two whales. This affects future generations by selectively targeting reproductive females. An even more deplorable method of selecting victims consists of harpooning a baby whale. The mother trying to help her baby then becomes an easy target. Two whales are killed, but it seems likely that only one is counted. This has been going on since Norway defied the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on whaling in 1986. Unlike Japan, Norway did not attempt to pass off her industrial whaling as "scientific research." Attempts to boycott Norwegian products have so far not succeeded in halting the slaughter. Norway is no less guilty than Japan of threatening the world's remaining whales. April 2001 Review of effects of low frequency sonar on cetaceans from WILDLIFE CONSERVATION March/April, 2001 issue: (p. 13) To locate silent submarines, the United States Navy, and other NATO forces, plan to deploy Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) systems, which will periodically emit sound pulses of up to 235 decibels throughout 80 percent of the world's oceans. The stranded whales in the Bahamas and Mediterranean were exposed to sonar at under 160 decibels, says Green, and "the Navy's proposed LFAS can produce a sound field of 150-160 decibels up to a hundred miles from the transmitting vessel." previous whale news whale index subsequent whale news |