Source: The International Harpoon, IWC 49, October 1997
"Norwegians are friendly and open. They feel they are unfairly victimised by this international witchhunt, and it is not surprising that they are touchy when it comes to whales and whaling. I really liked the whale beef. My host, a real Norwegian, prepared it in a superb way. When I had finished my dinner, he said cynically: ‘Now you are one of us — a murderer!’"
Polish hitch-hiker Bartlomiej Rzonca, in a letter to Norway’s Nordlys newspaper, Sept. 11, 1996.«I don’t ever want see another whale, dolphin or porpoise die.»
EIA chairman Allan Thornton in a fundraising letter, 1996, divulging his plans to give cetaceans eternal life.«There is no human being on this planet more important than a whale — including my mother.»
UK Sports Minister, Tony Banks, 1997."It is sad and the passengers were concerned, although you couldn’t say anyone was distressed. It is one of those things, like running over a cat."
Capt. Keith Stanley of the cruise liner QEII, after ramming a 60-foot whale, to Reuter, Sept. 18, 1996."A Fall from Freedom, produced by the Marine Mammal Fund and Narrated by acclaimed actor George C. Scott, depicts raw footage of the violence and suffering brought on by the Captive Display Industry. The images are not intended for all ages to see, as it ranks in comparable magnitude with the Nazi Concentration Camps, Slavery of the 1700’s, and income taxes."
PRNewswire, publicising a film on cetaceans in marine parks, March 4, 1997."Estimates of the decline of the Northeast Atlantic stock’s decline from pre-exploitation levels range from less than 50% to more than 50%."
Species Survival Network "fact" sheet on the minke whale, reproduced here verbatim, for CITES, June 1997."We pay lip service to such tattered Green totems as ‘sustainable’ use of natural resources, and go misty eyed about disappearing traditional cultures. But, presented with those cultures and with sustainability in action, we rebuff them with moral indignation and try to wreck their trade in seal furs and whale meat."
Fred Pearce, "Night of the Arctic Hunters", New Scientist, June 28, 1997."My judgment is that the pro-whaling side has put forward a strong and arguable case for a resumption of commercial whaling, with all kinds of safeguards built in to meet the arguments of those governments that have been delaying."
IWC Secretary Ray Gambell, to the New York Times, July 23, 1997."The beef industry is a part of the psyche of our nation ... for Britain our seas and the roast beefs of Old England matter more deeply than simple, bald economic feelings."
Then UK prime minister John Major, to Madrid Daily ABC, quoted in the Times, June 21, 1996."Animals, in particular stuck and physically discommoded animals, are now guaranteed more sympathy than any suffering human being over the age of 10, a point well illustrated by Chris Morris, when he duped Paul Daniels, Jilly Cooper, Britt Ekland, Nicholas Parsons and Carla Lane into beseeching our help for a fictitious zoo elephant whose trunk had got stuck in its bottom."
Commentary by Catherine Bennet, the Guardian, Mar. 26, 1997.