Whalers in Norway defend castigated hunt

Pierre-Henry Deshayes, Yahoo News 2 Sep 08;

In the Lofoten Islands, the main base for Norway's whaling industry, whalers adamantly defend the harshly criticised practice and reject claims that consumers are not buying whale meat.

In this cluster of islands nestled above the Arctic circle, the hunting season is over for this year. The whalers have all returned to their home ports, their vessels easily identified by the harpoons perched on the bow and an imposing watchtower that enables them to spot minke whales from afar.

The quota was hard to fulfill again this year, with whalers killing only half of the allowed catch of 1,052 whales. Since Norway resumed whaling in 1993, seven years after an international moratorium came into force, the hunters have only met their quota once.

They blame the low catch on the high fuel price, bad weather -- still waters are needed to harpoon a whale -- as well as quotas often distributed in regions far out to sea and a crunch in processing and distribution channels.

Greenpeace sees the issue differently.

"The figures speak for themselves: the market for whale meat is non-existent," says Truls Gulowsen of the environmental group's Norwegian branch.

Greenpeace long ago abandoned its spectacular anti-whaling campaigns where its boats went head to head in confrontations with whaling vessels.

"We have a better plan: we'll let the market decide. And it will die out," Gulowsen says.

Once a staple of the poor man's diet, whale meat is now almost never found in grocery stores.

But in Svolvaer, a small village in the Lofoten Islands, it has pride of place on restaurant menus where it is served both fried and as carpaccio, often a pleasant surprise for tourists' sceptical palates.

"Our problem is ignorance. A lot of people just don't understand what it is they're opposed to," says Leif Einar Karlsen, a local whaler who left his job as a mechanic 12 years ago to start hunting.

"People don't know that there are dozens of kinds of whales," he adds.

Stocks of minke whale, the smallest of the big whales, number more than 100,000 in the North Atlantic.

Norway, together with Iceland the only countries to authorise commercial whaling, estimates that the stocks are abundant enough to allow a limited quota.

But the minke whale remains on the list of near-threatened species drawn up by UN agency CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), which means it cannot be sold internationally.

"The result of unfortunate and effective lobbying," laments Bjoern Hugo Bendiksen, head of the Norwegian whalers' association.

The son, grandson and brother of a whaler, he harpooned 23 minkes this year.

"A mediocre season," he says.

While one minke whale can yield more than a tonne of meat, the processing plants on the nearby islet of Skrova pay only 30 kroner (3.8 euros, 5.5 dollars) per kilo.

Half of a season's revenue will cover the costs of the boat, while the crew, normally made up of four people, shares the rest.

"Before, whaling used to be a primary source of income. Now it's just a way for fishermen to supplement their income alongside the cod, hake and herring they catch the rest of the year," Karlsen said.

Whaling represents only 20 to 25 percent of overall income nowadays for most of the 30-odd whaling vessels that take part in the hunt in Norway each year.

In that light, whale safaris have become a more profitable business, with lower costs and less conflict. Usually.

"Once a whaler harpooned a whale right in front of us. My passengers, who were German tourists, were horrified. I almost had a heart attack," says Heiki Vester who runs the Ocean Sounds whale safari company.

Greenpeace's Gulowsen insists that "whaling is an industry of the past."

Supersize Me: Whale Meat
Resurfaces on Iceland Menus
Banned for 20 Years, It's a Hard Sale
For Young Palates; 'Moby Dick on a Stick'
Daniel Michaels, The Asian Wall Street Journal 2 Sep 08;

REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- Diners at the upscale Lobster House restaurant here can enjoy familiar appetizers such as lobster bisque or smoked eel. But the hot new starter is minke whale sashimi with wasabi crust and a shot of ginger tea on the side.

"It's traditional food made in a modern way," says chef Ulrich Jahn, who is now perfecting whale ceviche -- raw, thinly carved slices marinated in lime juice, lemon grass and garlic.

The recipes are mouthwatering to Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, the man on a mission to introduce whale meat to a new generation of prosperous Icelanders.

After a 20-year ban on commercial whaling, Iceland in 2006 resumed limited hunting of minke whale, one of the smallest and most numerous of the main whale species. Mr. Jonsson is the sole landlubber at the country's only licensed whaling company, Hrefnuveidimenn ehf. Marketing is among his many tasks.

When Mr. Jonsson started out, he assumed that old-timers raised on whale meat would gobble up their former staple. Whale was once among the least expensive mammal meats Icelanders could buy. "We ate a lot of it back when we were all poor," says Gudlaug Thora Kristinsdottir, a cashier at Reykjavik's popular Saegreifinn seafood shack.

The restaurant sells so many $15 "Moby Dick on a Stick" whale brochettes to tourists and older Icelanders that it has to hoard extra whale meat in the freezer, she says.

But Mr. Jonsson, 30 years old, wants whale to become more than comfort food for retirees and a novelty item for visitors. To increase the market, he aims to win over young people who like to barbecue during Iceland's endless summer nights.

Red Meat of the Sea

In a bid to entice urban hipsters, Mr. Jonsson started selling marinated whale meat, vacuum-sealed and ready for cooking. Radio spots announced that the meat was back in stores. Through newspaper ads, he has tried to entice consumers by offering preparation tips, such as how to avoid overcooking. At upscale meat shops, Mr. Jonsson began distributing free recipe cards that read, "A feast for the barbecue or the pan." Recipes include whale pepper steak and whale schnitzel.

Mr. Jonsson believes he can hook people -- his age and younger -- if they only try the stuff. It looks and tastes like beef but costs about half as much. Young people should like that bargain, Mr. Jonsson reckons.

Around this city, his challenge is evident. "It's not going to happen," says 20-year-old Pall Axel Palsson. Mr. Palsson, a bellhop, has no interest in whale and other traditional Icelandic foods such as smoked sheep head, goat testicles and rotten shark.

"I don't think any kid will eat whale meat," says 11-year-old skateboarder Sindri Svensson, whose father enjoys it. "I once tried salted whale fat and almost threw up," he adds.

Although opinion polls have shown general support for whaling among Icelanders, some shun the meat because of the giant creatures' still-limited numbers. Others worry that whaling will hurt Iceland's image and thus harm its thriving tourist industry.

Eva Maria Thorarinsdottir, marketing manager of Reykjavik's Elding Whale Watching, says minke whales were much friendlier before hunting resumed, but now they avoid ships. She regards whale-hunting as akin to fox-hunting in England: a legacy kept alive only by "proud, rich traditionalists." She adds: "Our business is much more profitable than theirs."

Mr. Jonsson says Hrefnuveidimenn still isn't profitable, mainly due to scale: It has only two ships and government permission to kill around 40 minke whales each year. He's hoping local officials will eventually let the company harpoon many more -- a move that Mr. Jonsson believes could help him expand the company and allow it to pursue bigger markets, such as Japan.

Iceland and Japan are among the few countries that still hunt whales amid global opposition. Like Iceland, Japan is trying to revive a taste for whale among young people, dishing out school lunches of whale meatballs and hamburgers. Japan consumes almost 6,000 tons of minke, fin, sperm and other whale meat annually.

'Ech'

Icelanders' relationship with the red meat of the sea goes back generations. Once, hundreds of locals hunted and processed whales for their meat, blubber and bones, says former fisherman Oskar Saevarsson, who now works at the Salt Fish Museum on Iceland's south coast.

"It's part of this nation," says Mr. Saevarsson, whose father and grandfather were whalers. "In 20 years, people who remember eating whale will be gone."

As recently as the 1970s, pan-fried whale steak was a regular meal for Icelandic children. Mothers soaked the flesh overnight in milk to kill the liverlike taste that comes from exposure to air.

"Ech," says Reykjavik restaurateur Helga Bjarnidottir, grimacing at the memory. Nevertheless, she now offers $18 whale burgers with lobster mayonnaise at her Geysir Bistro.

By the 1980s, many whale species were nearing extinction from overhunting world-wide. In 1986, the International Whaling Commission, a treaty organization charged with overseeing the industry, imposed a ban on commercial whaling. Soon, whale disappeared from stores and dinner tables. Hunting resumed here two years ago when Icelandic marine authorities felt the minke-whale population was large enough to sustain it.

Mr. Jonsson concedes that luring young people back "will definitely take time." For now, he is counting on word of mouth from people like 32-year-old Haukur Margeir Hrafnsson, a Reykjavik resident with an Egyptian eye tattooed on the back of his shaved head.

"For a meat eater like me, it's a delicious substitute for beef," says Mr. Hrafnsson, as he goes for some whale sushi.

Yr Gestsdottir, a 29-year-old clothing-store clerk who hails from a fishing village in Iceland's western fiords, notes that her brother likes the stuff. "I think it's a testosterone thing," she says. "I might cook whale for my foreign friends, just to provoke them," she says. "I'd have a salad."

Where whale steak goes well with greens
In Norway there is no contradiction between eco-consciousness and eating whale meat
The Guardian 2 Sep 08;

Sitting in a restaurant in Norway, the environmental campaigner tucks into her whale steak with red wine sauce and gratinated potatoes. This time it's slightly overcooked and bitter in taste, but it won't prevent Elisabeth Saether from ordering the dish again in the future. In the Nordic country, one of only two nations in the world to conduct commercial whaling, eating a slice of whale is as common as eating cod or salmon – even for greens.

Most people here are bemused when you explain that the majority of westerners outside Norway would be horrified at the thought of eating whale meat. And none more so than in the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago about 130 miles north of the Arctic Circle and the centre of the country's whaling industry. "It's a natural resource like any other," reckons Brita Malnes, 44, behind the counter of her cornershop in the port of Henningsvaer. "People [outside Norway] get very emotional when it comes to whales, but they don't get emotional about a cod or a chicken. What's the difference?"

Round the corner, Olaug Johanssen, an energetic 81-year-old out on her daily power walk, reckons whale is good for the body. "It's a very healthy meat. I like to buy it fresh from the fishermen when they come back to shore," she said.

"French people eat snails and it's considered fine. It's the same with this," reckoned 26-year-old Erik Ellingsen as he was packing slabs of common minke whale in blue boxes at a processing plant.

Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993, followed by Iceland in 2006 (Japan officially hunts for scientific research). Nordic fishermen only hunt one type of whale, the common minke whale, leaving orcas, like the one featured in 1993's Free Willy, well alone. Before the 1986 international moratorium, whaling was a traditional activity.

Eating whale is so normal here that the country's prime minister was filmed on a documentary cooking a slice of the red meat for his parents – the perfect way to portray himself as a regular Joe. It is safe to say Gordon Brown would not do the same stunt to curry favour with voters.

Conservation groups have not mounted high-profile campaigns here in years, as fighting whaling is not a top priority for them. "Whaling is not the biggest threat to the common minke whale," said Maren Esmark, head of conservation at WWF Norway. Other things, such as collision with ships or chemical pollution of the seas, are, she argues.

Other green groups, such as Bellona, which my dinner companion Elisabeth works for, don't even bother at all. The head of the organisation, Frederic Hauge, who was named a hero of the environment by Time magazine in 2007, comes from a well-known whaling town and reportedly has no problem with the activity. Only in Norway can you be green and eat a whale steak at the same time.