“Pro-whaling advocates decided that it was too risky to push their proposal to a vote and suffer the humiliation of it being publicly rejected,” said the UK-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
It had become “increasingly clear that the majority of nations were not convinced by the arguments that any whales being killed under the guise of commercial whaling was acceptable”.
However, warned the WDCS, although the non-whaling moratorium stands, Japan, Norway and Iceland “continue to whale outside of the sanction of the IWC, and that is a situation that has to change”.
Opposition to a return to commercial whaling was particularly clear from Australia and Latin America, with the EU willing to negotiate but still voting against the renewed-whaling proposal, said the WDCS.
“We now call on governments to work together to ensure the moratorium is implemented fully and effectively, ending commercial and so-called scientific whaling which have no place in the 21st century,” it said.
The WDCS believes that the IWC “has a strong future”, but only if it acts to stop “this cruel, unmanageable and unnecessary industry”.
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Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
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