Guest guest Posted April 28, 2000 Report Share Posted April 28, 2000 Whalers Weep at Blubber Price Fall 11:56 a.m. ET (1556 GMT) April 27, 2000 OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian whalers expressed dismay Thursday at a plunge in blubber prices and renewed a call for Oslo to lift a ban on lucrative exports to Japan. Minimum prices for blubber, a whale's thick fatty outer layer, have been set at 0.10 crown ($0.01) per kilo (2.2 lbs) for 2000 catches starting next week, sharply down from 3.0 crowns in 1999. " The price is very low. The problem is that there is no prospect of exporting the blubber,'' Per Rolandsen of the Norwegian Fishermen's Sales Association, which negotiates prices with processors, told Reuters. " We would like to be able to export again to Japan, but the issue is deadlocked,'' he said. Blubber is a delicacy in Japan but shunned as food in Norway, where the meat is sold as steaks. Up to 35 Norwegian fishing vessels will set out in early May to harpoon a quota of 655 minke whales. Norway has been stockpiling hundreds of tonnes of blubber since it resumed commercial whale catches in 1993, defying a global moratorium by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). But it insists it will respect an IWC export ban. " When Norway was allowed to export, we sometimes got as high a price for blubber as for meat,'' Rolandsen said. Minimum prices for whale meat this season have been set at 27.5 crowns per kilo, up two crowns from 1999. Norway has been trying to cut the blubber mountain, stored in freezers where much of it so old as to be inedible. A state-sponsored deal for transforming aging fat into heating oil has cut stocks by about 140 tonnes. Fishermen are banned from simply dumping blubber in the sea. A typical five-ton minke whale contains about 0.7 tonnes of blubber. Fox News Gray whales with Winston http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Jungle/1953/index.html Save the Whales http://www.homestead.com/savethewhales/index.html _________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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