Norway's whalers are unlikely to fill their quota before the end of the hunting season on August 31, officials said Friday, due to poor weather, high oil prices and dwindling demand for whale meat. "They can't fill the quota this year," Harvard P. Johansen, deputy director-general of the Norwegian ministry of fisheries, told AFP.
More than 500 minke whales have been killed since the Norwegian whaling season began on April 1, even though the government set an upper limit of 1,052 animals to be hunted this year.
That is the largest quota since Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993, despite an International Whaling Commission moratorium on the practice in place since 1986.
Animal protection groups said the low catch was due to the declining popularity of whale meat.
"It is no longer cool to eat whale," Greenpeace Norway spokesman Truls Guwolsen told AFP.
"The market is disappearing. It is very good" for the species, he said.
No whales were hunted off the island of Jan Mayen, 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Norwegian mainland, even though the government allowed around 400 whales to be hunted there.
"They (the whalers) did not bother to go that far," Guwolsen said.
But the government blamed bad weather and high oil prices for the low catch.
"The weather conditions have not been very good this year and you need them to be calm to hunt the whale," Johansen said.
"No one wants to go out over long distances as they don't want the expenses. That's why no one went to Jan Mayen."
Johansen denied that Norwegians' taste for whale had declined.
"At the beginning of the season, some producers could not deliver enough to cover demand," he said.
This year, around 30 boats had the right to hunt whales.
