NORWEGIAN WHALING IS A WASTEFUL PRACTICE, DENOUNCES GREENPEACE

15 June 1999

Greenpeace continued today its efforts to prevent the Norwegian whaling vessel Villduen from undermining international agreements and catching further whales in the North Sea. Greenpeace started the actions against the Villduen Friday and so far the boat has managed to catch three whales, one medium sized and two smaller ones. Only a small part of the whales killed have been kept on board the Villduen, while most of the carcasses have been disposed into the sea. After having flensed and parted the whales, the whalers are now continuing the hunt while three Norwegian coast guard ships are patrolling the area.

Norway has strong laws about dealing with the disposal of waste from fishing, which is a very wasteful practice, says Dr Ralf Sonntag, Greenpeace marine biologist on board. "Norway has always been active in international fora to ban discarding as a fisheries practice. It is ironic that today the Villduen, a Norwegian whaling vessel, dumped nine tenths of the whales caught back into the sea. And this happened under the eyes of the Norwegian coast guard who did not react.

Greenpeace has managed to document the discarding of the whale carcasses, despite attempts from the Norwegian cost guard to interfere with the filming of the whalers waste disposal. "When we started documenting the disposal of whale carcasses, the Norwegian coast guard started to use their inflatables to push our observer boat away from the scene, said Sonntag. Greenpeace started its peaceful protest against the illegal Norwegian whaling on Friday, when the environmentalists first spotted the Villduen whaling in the North Sea. On Saturday, during a reckless and irresponsible manoeuvre by the Norwegian coast guard patrol, a Greenpeace activist got seriously injured and is still in hospital in Stavanger, Norway.

Updated information to be found on http://www.greenpeace.no/english

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
- Frode Pleym, Whale Campaigner Greenpeace Nordic, +47 95 80 49 50 (mob), e-mail: frode@nordic.greenpeace.org
- Mats Holmberg, Press Officer Greenpeace Nordic +46 8 702 70 74, +46 70 772 64 10 (mob), e-mail: mats@nordic.greenpeace.org
- Luisa Colasimone, Press Officer Greenpeace International + 31 653 66 29 70 (mob)