Google – AFP, 6 February 2014
 |
The tails
of two 35-tonne Fin whales are bound to a Hvalur boat on June 19, 2009
after
being caught off the coast of Hvalfjsrour, north of Reykjavik, on the western
coast
of Iceland (AFP/File, Halldor Kolbeins)
|
Washington
— The United States said Thursday that Iceland was violating an international
agreement through its whaling, opening the possibility of economic sanctions
over the controversial hunt.
The
Department of the Interior, in a decision it is required to take under US law,
found that the Nordic country's actions violated the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
The
certification was sent to President Barack Obama, who has 60 days to determine
whether to impose economic sanctions on the NATO ally. After a similar decision
in 2011, Obama declined to do so but ordered diplomatic measures to raise
concern.
Iceland and
Norway are the only nations that openly defy a 1986 global moratorium on
commercial whaling. Japan kills hundreds of whales a year but says it abides by
the moratorium by using a loophole that allows "lethal research" on
the ocean giants.
Iceland
consumes little whale meat but supplies the Japanese market. It increased its
2014 quotas to 383 whales, despite not making the hunt level the previous year.
Interior
Secretary Sally Jewell, in a statement on the decision, credited the 1986
moratorium with helping whale stocks recover after commercial whaling "had
nearly driven whales to extinction."
Conservation
and animal rights groups hailed the move and called for Obama to take action to
stop Iceland's hunt.
"Killing
endangered fin whales is not only brutal, it's short-sighted," said Taryn
Kiekow Heimer of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Iceland
should not be allowed to ignore the fact that, regardless of some temporary
financial reward, this practice is simply unsustainable and cruel," she
said.
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