Created: 2008-09-13 20:05:41

Hunting of Great Whales is forbidden all over the world, except for rarely issued permits for scientific researches; and few existing permits for some countries, where there is a nutritional or cultural need for whales meat.

One of the countries, having this permit, is Greenland. Currently this country is allowed to hunt 10 whales every year. However, local whalers are asking to increase this number. Their requests are declined, as the world-wide organization, who can give such permit, thinks that hunting is already too commercial in Greenland, and the increase of need for whales' meat is not as big as hunters state.

On one side, increasing hunting quota will reduce poaching activities, and Greenland will stop trying to remove its whale hunt from the jurisdiction of the coordinating organization. On the other side, increasing such limits can result in more requests from other countries, and that could end in highly greater number of whales killed every year.