APNewsBreak: US mulls sanctions against Iceland
By DAVID Mac DOUGALL, Associated Press – 4 hours ago
HELSINKI (AP) — The United States is set to announce possible trade and diplomatic sanctions against Iceland for ramping up its whale hunts despite an international moratorium on commercial whaling.
The Obama administration on Wednesday will cite Iceland under a domestic law that allows the president to
act Read More
A new movement of consciousness amongst Icelanders is gaining momentum. From meetings with the prominent and politically connected, to students from the universities, a small movement of pro whale watching and anti whaling advocates has been formed. This movement will focus on a powerful pro whale watching campaign which challenges the whaling and fishing industry’s false statements that promote the killing of whales. Just as the financial sectors of Iceland and U.S. claimed they should be trusted with financial investments prior to and throughout this worldwide economic collapse, the whaling and fisheries industry of Iceland claim they should be trusted with the international whale population. The scientific advisors to the Fisheries and Whaling industries of Iceland are submissive to the Chairman and other Executives of the Fisheries, which also happens to be the owners of the largest whaling company in Iceland. The scientists for the Marine Research Institute of Iceland (MRI) are incentivized by the Ministry of Fisheries, The Federation of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners (LIU), and The Confederation of Icelandic Employers (SA) to produce scientific study results that support whaling. Just like the incentives that caused the global economic crisis, these incentives for the MRI scientist will contribute to the collapse of worldwide whale species.
This new group of pro whale watching and anti whaling advocates are fully aware that the whaling industry is controlled by a few wealthy individuals and can be toppled with a strategic attack. The movement is gaining momentum alongside the whale watching industry. Whaling will fall in Iceland and it’s only a matter of months before the owners of the whaling companies and their supporters in the Parliament and Fisheries will succumb to the same slow, painful end that they have given time and again to the whales of our world.
If you would like to join the movement, please email us at tim@keepingwhalesalive.org
Nineteen conservation and animal welfare groups, representing tens of millions of U.S. citizens, today called on the US Secretaries of Commerce and Interior to impose trade sanctions against Iceland for its escalating defiance of international conservation agreements on commercial whaling.
A petition filed by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) on behalf of the ‘Whales Need US’ coalition and Species Survival Network, urges Secretaries Locke and Salazar to invoke U.S. conservation legislation known as the Pelly Amendment against Iceland, a move that could deal a death blow to Iceland’s out of control whaling industry.
The Pelly Amendment authorizes Read More
25.11.2010 | 11:47
US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke has sent a letter to Icelandic Minister of Fisheries Jón Bjarnason where he criticizes Iceland’s whaling, reasoning that there is no market for whale products and that whaling is therefore unnecessary.
In the letter, Locke said he is hoping for further discussions on whaling with Iceland. “We are prepared to Read More
Sixteen years after the gray whale was taken off the endangered species list, the California Gray Whale Coalition says their numbers are dwindling again and is leading a campaign to protect the marine mammals further declines.
As a first step toward the goal Read More
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 3:37 AM on 31st July 2010
A rare humpback whale has been found dead after it was hit by a luxury cruise liner near Douglas Island, Alaska.
The 43ft-long female humpback was found stuck on the bow of the Sapphire Princess owned by Princess Cruises, after becoming attached overnight.
U.S. Coast Guard officials detained the liner for three hours to open an investigation and remove the whale’s body.
by WWLTV.com Posted on September 13, 2010 at 9:41 PM
VENICE, La. – Thousands of fish and a dead whale on Monday were found dead at the mouth of a shipping channel in Venice.
Species include crabs, sting rays, eels, drum, speckled trout and red fish.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who sent in the pictures above, said there is no testing going on to determine if it’s from the oil spill, although the northern Gulf of Mexico has suffered from a persistent dead zone of low oxygen, blamed on nutrient rich runoff from the Mississippi River.
Nungesser said this is different because usually the kills happen to only one or two species of fish.
One University of Georgia scientist who found oil at the bottom of the Gulf said she hasn’t seen convincing data that connects the oil and the fish kills, but that studies need to be done to determine what’s going on.
