U.S. Opposes Iceland's Decision to Begin Research Whaling

The United States deeply regrets and strongly opposes the government of Iceland’s announcement on August 6, 2003 of its intention to begin research whaling.

The United States has a long-standing policy of opposing lethal research whaling. This policy is well known and has been articulated frequently through our opposition to the lethal research whaling conducted by Japan. Since Iceland’s announcement earlier this year of its intention to begin killing whales, the United States has urged Iceland in numerous fora to refrain from commencing this program.

The United States believes that lethal research on whales is not necessary, and that the needed scientific data can be obtained by well-established non-lethal means. At the June 2003 Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission, 40 members of the Scientific Committee stated that the Icelandic proposal had no quantifiable objectives or reasonable performance standards. They noted that the proposal failed to provide adequate justification for the proposed sample sizes. Further, they stated that its major objectives were not relevant to the management of whales. The United States is also concerned that Iceland has not published the results from its 1986 to 1989 research whaling program.

Also at the 2003 International Whaling Commission meeting, the United States co-sponsored a resolution urging Japan to terminate and Iceland to not commence lethal research whaling, and for both to use only non-lethal methods for scientific purposes. This position is consistent with previous U.S. positions on lethal scientific whaling. In addition, we believe Iceland’s scientific whaling program is counter-productive to efforts in the International Whaling Commission to make progress in developing an effective and transparent Revised Management Scheme for commercial whaling. The United States again urges Iceland to reconsider its decision to begin this program.