Finally, the first whale was shoot today after 20 years of ban against whaling.
It is great.

Solvi whale shooting it's considered in your Country a hunting sport ? personal opinion shooting a whale from a ship it's like hunting elephant from a armored tank , a shame , more if it's "Just for fun"

Daniel

No, it is not a sport. But there are so many whales all around Iceland and our main industry is fishing so there is a sort of competition between them and our fishing boats.
They are hunted for the meat and I can�t see any difference shooting a whale or something else for the meat. What I was meaning by this writing was that I am happy that we wont let some Greenpease ore other tree huggers make the decisions for us. There are over 35000 Mink whales around Iceland and we are going to hunt 38 of them.
Ps
Why should we be ashamed for hunting them, are you maybe one of those that have adopted a whale and get to send a donation every month to some originations to take care of them.

Solvi

I agree with you as long as you do this in the traditional way.
But as soon as it is made in industrial way it gets worse. And that was the problem in the past.

Lets hope that you can hunt your whales in this small amount and no industrial whaler will follow and kill too much of the whales.

Best regards

solvi

I guess that the whales doesn't eat any fish, but plankton? I have to agree with Daniel M, the sporting factor is annoying low. I think that Iceland has lost it's face. I don't mind sporting fishing but shooting a whale with cannon from boat is nothing I like.

The asians are the biggest crooks when it comes to this type of "Fishing". I would like to go shark fishing with a Asian fisherman as bait

/ JOHAN

I can�t see anything wrong per se with hunting whales commercially, if the hunt/culling is planned, regulated and based on statistics about the whale population.

The way to many nation fish and hunt whales, however, is to be criticised. An example is the cod in the eastern North Sea at the Swedish west coast, which is nearly extincted because of unregulated fishing. Whales have been hunted in that manner, which decimated the populations severly.

Fritz

They are harpooned with a special exploding charge and if they don�t die instantly they are shoot again with a high powered riffle, something like 458 or similar cal.
The Mink Whale is a small one, he is only 7-11 meters long and will weight somewhere in between 5 to 10 tons.
And Johann, it is a fact, they eat a lot of fish.
The main diet is Herring, Cod, Capelin and Sandeel

S�lvi

Solvi

You said you hunt for meat but the official agument is for "scientific reasons".

You can do alot of research on 38 dead whales or was it for the meat ???

Have you been craving for whale meat during the ban ?

Just wondering
Mikael

HQ6,5x55. . You said you hunt for meat but the official agument is for "scientific reasons".
This is from the Icelandic Ministry of Fisheries
The proceeds from selling the products, which will go to the domestic Icelandic market, will fall short of covering the cost of conducting the scientific research. In fact, the cost is likely to be manifold the value of the whale products. The government of Iceland has therefore decided to provide funds for the research in view of its importance for maintaining Iceland's long-term policy of sustainable use of living marine resources.

The main objective of the research is to gain knowledge on the role that minke whales have in the marine ecosystem, especially their interaction with fish stocks. Following are the research objectives, as set out in the scientific plan's executive summary:
1. Increase the knowledge on feeding ecology of minke whales in Icelandic waters by studies on diet composition, energetics, consumption of different prey species and multispecies modelling.
2. Comparison of the genetic structure of minke whales off Iceland, Norway (including the Jan Mayen area), the Faroes and Greenland.
3. Monitoring and evaluation of the morbidity of potential pathogens.
4. Temporal changes in biological parameters.
5. Pollutant burden and evaluation of the health status of individual whales and populations.
6. The applicability of nonlethal research methods.

And yes I miss having the whale meat on my table, and I look forward to be able to by a slice tomorrow when it will be available in stores. Its delicious and it has been to long sins it was last on my plate.

Okay, Solvi, I'll "bite". How do you prepare your whale meat? Is it filleted and broiled like a T-bone steak, or is it battered and fried like Southern chicken and served with cream gravy? Just curious.

Both methods will work just fine, my favorite is to roll the meat in breadcrumbs and fry it in a small amount of olive oil and just season it with salt and black pepper, some of my friends will use fondue and I have tried it raw just like sushi with Soya souse.
Bon appetite
S�lvi

Sounds like all I need to teach you to do is make cream gravy and you'll have a dish the equal of the best Texas roadhouse Chicken Fried Ollie.

One would more-or-less expect whale to taste "fishy", but being mammalian, it should be more similar to "red" meats. What meat would you compare it to?

Good stuff Solvi. 38 whales out of such a large population sounds like nothing at all.

If it can be utilised in a sustainable manner what is the problem?

"Save the Whale" indoctrination in kindergartens and schools unfortunately seems to affect even hunters

Well today the meat came in to stores and after 4 hours it was sold out.
And in the evening news, people who bought the whale meat, was answering how they would prepare it. The most popular methods where BBQ, one minute per side, and schnitzel or pepper steak with cream gravy (o.k. Stonecreek ) I know that the next one is on the way, he was shoot yesterday and will be in stores tomorrow.
There are three small ships hunting, but they are followed by other boats that the press rents, and when reporters or other boats are near they wont shoot, so the hunting is going rather slow.

Finaly our Iceland friends have followed us. And started to hunt the plentyfull mink whales.

Ofcourse they should be hunted. There are a good population, there is a marked for the meat and we have good modern metods for hunting them.

Even if other whales didn't recover after industrial hunting, the mink whale has.

And mink whales eat fish. Hardly any whales are pure plankton eaters. The mink whale is a fish eater. Not that I think the amount of fish they eat makes it nesesery to wipe them out, but not hunting them is a waste of good food.

Johan