The resolution restricts itself to commercial whaling. “But their condemnation of whaling methods also impacts aboriginal whaling,” says Hansi Kreutzmann of the Greenland hunters’ and fishermen’s organisation, KNAPK to the High North News.
“Whaling methods are proven inhumane,” says the resolution whose authors will attempt to submit it as an “urgency resolution” to be dealt with during the Parliamentary session beginning on April 19.
The motion urges the EU Commission and the Council of Ministers “to take all appropriate action to prevent the legitimization of commercial whaling” and “to insist” that Norway put a stop to the minke whale harvest for a preliminary period of 4 years in connection with its accession to the EU.
Statistical Error
The letter also points out that the request to “prevent the legitimization of commercial whaling” is in conflict with the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which has been ratified by most of the EU member states.
What Standards?
The resolution contains a blatant statistical error. It says that 69 percent of the 157 minke whales taken during the 1993 commercial hunt “were pregnant”. The correct figures are that 56 percent of the 157 whales were females and 69 percent of these were in calf. In a letter addressed to the leaders of the party groups in the European Parliament, the High North Alliance points out this error and writes: “In most hunts, including whaling, it is forbidden to shoot females in the company of young. It is Nature’s way that most females not accompanied by young, are in fact pregnant.”
The High North Alliance has also written a letter to the proposers of the resolution. In this letter, the following questions are asked. “What bodies have determined that “methods of killing whales are proven inhumane? What standards are the terms “humane killing” and “inhumane killing” based on? Is it to be understood from the resolution that all types of hunt are inhumane?”