Norwegian whalers sell animals’ meat for dog food or dump it into the sea

Norwegian whalers are handing over meat from marine animals as dog food, new documents reveal, after they slaughtered near-record numbers.

Some hunters have given whale meat to a sled dog company when they had more than they could sell in shops, and others have reportedly admitted dumping whale meat in the sea.

Some of the catch is even exported to Japan, another country that defies the international ban on whaling and protects its “cultural tradition” of hunting the mammals.

Last month, Norway’s whaling industry announced it had slaughtered 575 minke whales this season - the highest number in five years.

Until recently some of the meat was sold to fur farms to feed animals such as mink, according to the US-based the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI).

Earlier this year, the Norwegian Environment Agency approved a shipment from a fishing company, Hopen Fisk, of six tonnes of whale meat to a tourism company offering sled dog tours of Svalbard and an individual sled dog racer, according to documents obtained by the institute.

Another whaling company, Myklebust Hvalprodukter, sells both whale oil and raw whale meat for dogs on its website.

Hopen Fisk’s general manager acknowledged last month that the company supplies whale meat for dog food, according to a report by NRK, the Norwegian broadcasting corporation.

NRK said only a third of the nearly 600 tons of whale meat from this year’s hunting season was sold to Norwegian shops.

And last year, the country sold more to Japan – 220 tons – than to its own shops - 164 tons, it said.

“Norway’s whaling titans and government leaders continue to perpetuate the false narrative that domestic demand for whale products is increasing,” said Susan Millward, head of AWI’s marine animal programme.

“In reality, the very whales that help keep the ocean healthy and fight climate change are being fed to dogs.”

Norwegian whalers have admitted that dumping unused whale into the sea is common practice, according to the institute.

“How can we value the lives of these gentle giants so cheaply when they play such a massive role in mitigating climate breakdown?” said Vanessa Williams-Grey, of WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “We need more whales, not fewer - killing whales is not just cruel, it’s stupid.”

Opponents of whaling say domestic demand for carcases has dropped, but last year Hopen Fisk reported increased interest in whale meat.

A poll last month commissioned by AWI, Norwegian animal-protection organisation Noah and WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation found that only 2 per cent of Norwegians eat whale meat often, down from 4 percent in 2019.

The campaigners said that Norwegian export statistics show that since 2018, Norway has shipped nearly 515 tons of whale meat to Japan and 3.4 tons to the Faroe Islands, despite both nations carrying out their own whale and dolphin hunts.

A week after the massacre last month of more than 1,400 Atlantic white-sided dolphins in the Faroe Islands, Norwegian authorities approved a shipment by a whaling company for 0.86 tons of minke whale meat to the islands, the groups said.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a global ban on commercial whaling in 1982, but Norway defied it to resume whaling 11 years later.

Siri Martinsen, a vet at Noah, said: “For years, the Norwegian government has tried to make whaling profitable by giving subsidies for its promotion.

“The fact that minke whales are ending up as dog food shows the failure of this strategy and the absurdity of the situation. I doubt that Norwegians would feel happy about whales being killed to feed dogs.”

The Norwegian government says minke whales are not an endangered species around its coasts, and the hunt is a legal, traditional, small-scale activity.

The Independent has asked Hopen Fisk to comment, to confirm that it has handed over whale meat as dog food and how much it dumps at sea.

A Norwegian government spokesman said over the past few years the ministry had awarded “minor funds to a few individual projects for domestic marketing of whale products”.

He added: “There is a strong tradition in Norway of providing the local community and the domestic market with the meat available for consumption. Whatever is not suited for the consumption by humans has traditionally been put to use in various other ways or, mainly concerning the skeletal parts, intestines and to a certain degree the blubber, returned to the ecosystem of the sea.”