By Aasa Christine Stoltz

OSLO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Norwegian whalers caught just over half their quota of 1,052 minke whales in 2007, a small rise from last year, but hunters and their opponents dispute whether regulations or dwindling demand cut back the catch.

Norway and Iceland are the only nations to allow "commercial" whale hunts despite a two-decade moratorium on whaling by the International Whaling Commission. Japan catches hundreds of minke whales but says it is for scientific purposes.


Read full article: 'Norway's whale catch up slightly, quota unfilled'

Iceland has stopped commercial whaling after whalers discovered they cannot find domestic markets for the meat they have caught.

Iceland's fisheries minister Einar K. Guofinnsson said that it made no sense to issue new quotas if the market for whale meat was not strong enough.


Read full article: 'Iceland ends whaling due to lack of demand'

SAPPORO -- Eco-tourists on a whale-watching vessel, looking forward to observing the mighty creatures in their natural habitat, were instead greeted by the sight of a harpooned whale being dragged in by a Japanese whaling vessel on Friday.


Read full article: 'Whale harpooned, hauled in by Japanese boat in front of whale-watching tourists'

ALERT BAY, B.C. (CP) - About 50 killer whales have swum through a diesel slick created when a barge overturned near Vancouver Island's famed orca rubbing beaches, a whale researcher said Tuesday.

Paul's Spong's Orca Lab is about10 kilometres from where logging equipment, including a tank truck carrying diesel fuel, fell into Johnstone Strait.


Read full article: 'Whales swimming through diesel slick off northern Vancouver Island'

But in the wake of California ruling, captain says a ban might be feasible at certain times of year to protect orcas
Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
Published: Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Endangered killer whales and military vessels that use sonar can co-exist in the straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca, military experts insist.

However, the navy could probably cope with a mid-frequency sonar ban at certain times of the year, provided Canada is not facing any direct threat, said Capt. Jim Heath, Maritime Forces Pacific assistant chief of staff for operations.

The navy, environmental groups and marine-mammal scientists in B.C. are looking carefully at a ruling from a federal judge in Los Angeles barring the U.S. navy from using high-powered sonar in nearly a dozen training exercises off Southern California.



Read full article: 'Sonar exercises essential despite whale risks'

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Scientists are searching this summer for one of the most precariously positioned animals on the planet — Pacific right whales.

The whales, once prized by commercial whalers, have been teetering on extinction for decades. The search for the slow-moving behemoths is being prompted by the search for a less rare but increasingly valuable commodity — oil and gas in the Bering Sea.



Read full article: 'Oil interest drives search for rare right whales'

Hunters in Arctic Bay have banned film crews from watching them shoot whales at the floe edge following the release of a critical portrayal of their spring narwhal hunt in National Geographic this month.

"That's to protect the people. We don't know who to trust now," said Tommy Kilabuk, chair of the Ikajutit Hunters and Trappers Association.

In May the HTA passed a bylaw that bans film crews from the floe edge after hunters received a draft copy of the article, which portrays the community's spring hunt of narwhal as wasteful, with many whales shot but never retrieved.


Read full article: 'Hunters ban filming of whale harvests'

BOSTON (AP) - A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt - more than a century ago.

Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.

"No other finding has been this precise,'' said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.


Read full article: '19th-Century Weapon Found in Whale'

By Jeff Thomas

SAN JOSE, Calif. - An unprecedented count of endangered humpback whales - like the two that made a lengthy side trip into the Sacramento Delta recently - is revealing a comeback so convincing that marine scientists are pondering a controversial question:

Is it time for the whales, hunted to near-extinction in the 20th century, to have less protection under the federal Endangered Species Act?


Read full article: 'Apparent comeback of humpback whales'

Japan has threatened to quit the International Whaling Commission (IWC) after fierce opposition from anti-whaling nations forced it to scrap a proposal to allow four coastal villages to hunt the animals.


Read full article: 'Japan threatens to quit whaling forum'

RACHEL D'ORO
Associated Press Writer

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The International Whaling Commission on Tuesday approved extending bowhead whaling quotas for Alaska Eskimos for subsistence hunting.


Read full article: 'Whaling extended for Alaska Eskimos'

Japan should drop plans to kill 50 humpback whales later this year as a gesture of goodwill after New Zealand helped a crippled Japanese whaling ship in Antarctica, the NZ environment minister said.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter said Japan's move to kill 50 humpback whales - an endangered species - as part of its scientific whaling program was a "provocative act" and would generate "enormous hostility" worldwide.


Read full article: 'Stop whale-kill program, NZ tells Japan'

TOKYO- The fate of the 21-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling is a numbers' game played at the annual International Whaling Commission meeting—and this year Japan is still short of votes in its drive to overturn the ban.
Tokyo, which has fought for years to undo the 1986 moratorium, sent shivers through anti-whaling ranks last year when it rallied a one-vote majority at the IWC for a symbolic resolution saying the ban was no longer needed.

But anti-whaling forces say that with the recent addition of several pro-moratorium members, Tokyo's influence in the 75-member group is slipping and remains far from having the three-fourth's majority needed to scrap the ban at the IWC meeting next week.


Read full article: 'Japan lacks votes to end whaling ban'

Three schoolgirls from Nelson Bay, on the NSW mid-north coast, head to Alaska this week to face an International Whaling Commission meeting in a bid to save endangered humpbacks and Australia's whale-watching industry.

Skye Bortoli, 14, her sister Caitlin, 8, and friend Ayesha Future, 17, have raised $12,000 through donations, auctions and car washes to make the Alaska trip, and gathered 40,000 signatures under the name "Teens Against Whaling".


Read full article: 'Schoolgirls off to Alaska to fight Japanese whaling'

Auckland's Pacific community will stage a rally in Manukau Square tomorrow to protest against Japanese plans to hunt up to 50 humpback whales next summer.

Melino Maka, rally co-organiser and Tongan Advisory Council chairman, says the rally is not anti-Japanese but about saving one of the few economic lifelines Pacific nations have in tourism.


Read full article: 'Tourism dies with the whales'