This is just sad. I’m reading an article over on Discovery News about a new deal being worked out on whaling by the International Whaling Commission. The article says the draft of a new deal that has been posted on the IWC’s site doesn’t look good at all, despite claiming to reduce whaling.

Sounds lovely in principle, except what it really does is ban whaling in an area where none takes place anyhow, and opens up a previous sanctuary. The article on Discovery News notes:

the crux of the agreement as presently constituted is that Japan, Norway and Iceland will all be allowed to continue whaling, unchallenged, for the next ten years.

They haven’t even set limits yet, but they’re expected to be basically what the whaling nations want them to be.

The really pathetic part is that the nations that are doing all of this whaling can’t even sell all the whale meat they kill anyhow. They’re just trying to keep things going and hope the market opens up again.

Sad to see that the IWC doesn’t have what it takes to protect the whales. I guess they aren’t paying attention to whale populations.

What it’s really going to take, I suspect, is more people from the whaling countries to demand that whaling cease. Demand is way down in those countries, but there needs to be more insistence that whaling not take place at all. I don’t know what it will take for that to happen.