On April 1st, the Norwegian Fisheries Ministry released their whaling regulations for 2006 announcing the largest quota set since 1986. The killing season for piked (minke) whales opened on April 1st, and the Norwegians have given themselves 1052 victims in violation of the International Whaling Commissions global moratorium on commercial whaling.

The new regulations also have the Norwegians giving themselves permission to slaughter whales outside of the economic exclusion zone in international waters. This move compounds Norwegians criminality with regard to their already illegal whaling activities. This means that Norwegian whalers will be killing whales just outside the territorial waters of Great Britain.

Last year, the Norwegians failed to make their self-set quota of 796 whales. There appears to not be enough whales to be found to meet their quotas so the government of Norway has given the go ahead for the Norwegian whalers to kill every whale they can find.

A feature article published in the May edition of Outside magazine entitled Bloody Businessdetails the inhumane killing and exposes the barbaric mentality of the whalers of Norway.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society hold the position that all Norwegian whaling activities are a violation of international conservation law and urges that all non-violent measures be utilized by organizations, governments, and individuals to shut down these criminal operations.

Sea Shepherd has a history of enforcing international regulations against illegal whaling activities, most notably the scuttling of the outlaw whaling vessels (in port and unoccupied): Nybraena in December 1992, the outlaw whaler Senet in 1994, and the outlaw whaler Morild in 1998. In 2002 and 2005-6, Sea Shepherd sailed to the waters of Antarctica to protect whales from the illegal Japanese whaling fleet.

Click here to learn more about Sea Shepherd's history saving whales.