Tourists to experience a day in the life of an Icelandic whaler

Whalers hope hands-on experience will provide new ways to make money and persuade people of their point of view
John Vidal guardian.co.uk 8 Jul 11;

Icelandic whalers, fed up with animal welfare groups telling them to stop killing whales, have found a new way to make money and persuade people of their point of view. From next month they will invite tourists to go out to sea with them to watch minke and other whales close-up. The holidaymakers will then get to "experience" the life of a whaler, see and hear harpoons being fired, touch a whale tail, inspect the internal organs of whales and sit down for a tasty meal of blubber and whale meat with the captain.

"We won't actually kill any whales", said Gunnar Jonsson, the manager and owner of Hrefnuveiðimanna, Iceland's Minke Whalers Association. "The idea is to take people out in the close season to give them an idea of what we do. This is cultural tourism. There has been a lot of interest. We have bookings from groups in England and Germany."

The news comes as more than 100 pro- and anti-whaling countries prepare for the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting in Jersey next week. They will hear that the Japanese tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear accident in March may have impacted heavily on whale populations in the north Pacific.

According to French conservation group Robin des Bois, large numbers of young minke whales were passing close to the Fukushima reactors around the time of the accident. Apart from the massive debris and pollution from destroyed industrial facilities, nuclear company Tepco has admitted dumping tens of thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive water into the sea since the tsunami. Two minke whales caught off the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido have shown elevated values of caesium–137.

Japan – which along with Norway and Iceland is one of the few countries to allow commercial whaling – is believed to be reconsidereing its whaling position following the tsunami, which wiped out one of the country's main whaling ports and seriously damaged its ageing fleet.

Jonsson hopes to charge tourists visiting Iceland between $200-$300 and take them out in groups of 15 to 20. "We have seen that people enjoy whale-watching, and many people ask us how whaling is done, but we are not going to push whaling. Now they can learn about the culture."

But the unusual tourist offering was dismissed by Iceland's whale-watching industry as "not welcome".

"We are not happy with this. There is not much profit in whaling these days so we think it is a way to drum up their business which is selling whale meat," said Rannveig Grétarsdóttir, head of IceWhale, the Icelandic whale-watching association.

From only a few tourists 10 years ago, nearly 200,000 foreigners now go whale-watching off Iceland every year, says the government's tourist ministry. But the boom in numbers has also led to an unexpected surge in whale-eating, with more than 100 restaurants and shops now offering tourists whale as an exotic meat.

This is very distressing for conservation groups which this week appealed to tourists to watch whales – but not to touch them. "Iceland's whalers are putting more effort into promoting the sale of whale meat and are now offering smoked and marinated whale meat in addition to whale steaks for grilling. Sadly, we are seeing increasing numbers of tourists walking off whale watching vessels and straight into restaurants that serve whale meat. They are inadvertently helping to keep the cruel whaling industry afloat," says Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society spokeswoman Vanessa Williams-Grey.

"We ask that people resist the temptation to give the meat a try despite whatever they may be told by local whale hunters. The fact is that only a small percentage of Icelandic people eat the meat these days. The whales suffer a long and slow death, they are not suitable as a species for human harvesting and, contrary to myth, they are not responsible for reducing local fish stocks."

There is also increasing evidence that whalers and whale watching companies are now chasing the same whales, giving tourists an unexpected insight into the industry. "On at least one occasion this season, the minke whalers killed and processed a whale in waters designated as a protected area in Faxaflói Bay, near Reykjavik, also a prime whale watch area," said Williams-Grey.