Is Greenland’s “subsistence” whaling a profit making scam?

June 2008. New covert film evidence and a report showing Greenland's commercial exploitation of its indigenous whaling quotas has been made public.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) sent investigators to Western Greenland to investigate increasing anecdotal evidence of Greenland's profit-making misuse of their aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas.

Commercial whaling banned in 1986
Although all commercial whaling was banned in 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) allocates aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas every year to several countries, including Greenland, which is currently allowed to hunt 233 whales every year.

WSPA's undercover team discovered that at least 25% of Greenland's aboriginal subsistence whaling quota has been bought, processed and sold to supermarkets for onward sale by a privately owned company, Arctic Green Food.

The WSPA report, ‘Exploding Myths; an exposé of the commercial elements of Greenlandic Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling', estimates that US$1million profit is made annually. However, the majority of the cash goes to Arctic Green Food - the whalers only get a small fraction of the profit from the supermarket sale.

50 whales per year for supermarkets
Arctic Green Food buys around 50 whales each year from Greenland's subsistence whalers; they even have a whale meat cookery book in an attempt to boost sales. The aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas exist to allow indigenous people to hunt an agreed number of whales, on the legal understanding that the local community is traditionally dependent on the whale meat and will be the only people to consume it.

All whalers interviewed by WSPA during the course of the investigation claimed to be non-dependent on whaling, as it only constitutes a small addition to their income.

A member of WSPA's undercover team said: "With the interviews and footage we've secured, WSPA believes that Greenland's subsistence whaling has crossed the line into commercial whaling. Commercial whaling is banned, yet Greenland is very openly doing it and profiting from this inherently cruel practice."

Denmark wants to add 10 Humpbacks to the quota
"This investigation comes as Denmark - of which Greenland is a self-governing state - plans to petition at this year's IWC meeting for 10 humpback whales to be added to their aboriginal subsistence whaling quota. Our investigation found supermarket freezers full of whale products and stock piles of unsold whale meat from 2006, so why are these additional whales needed?"

WSPA will be presenting the ‘Exploding Myths' report and accompanying evidence while calling for tighter controls on aboriginal subsistence whaling at this year's IWC meeting in Santiago, Chile - not just in Greenland but all countries with these quotas. Despite the 20 year old ban, more than 2000 whales are killed annually around the world.