Best whaling season since 2008
Norwegian whalers have finished this year’s whaling season. Less than half of the quota was catched.
The hunting season for minke whale was closed on August 31. 529 whales out of a quota of 1286 were catched. A total of 19 vessels participated in this year’s whaling, Lofotposten reports.
This is the highest number of minke whales caught since 2008. 202 of the animals were catched near Svalbard, the rest along the coast from The North Sea to the Varanger Fjord.
The minke whales are the second smallest baleen whale and can be up to 9 meters long. Minke whales are widely distributed throughout the world, commonly found from the poles to the tropics, but they prefer the open sea.
In the northeastern Atlantic, the total population of minke whales in the periode 1996-2001 was estimated to be on the order of 174,000, according to the International Whaling Commission.
