For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
There were only nine countries between 2012 and 2016 allowed to catch whales, two officially doing ‘commercial whaling’, Norway and Iceland among those one. Japan and South Korea are fishing under the ‘special permit’ ruling. North America/Alaska, Canada, Russia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Greenland are whaling with a ‘Aboriginal Subsistence’ permit with respective catch limits.
Between 2000 and 2015 Japan caught the highest number of whales, 9861 whales, consisting of Minke, Sei and Bryde’s whales, closely followed by Norway with 9120 whales.
Japan is the only country still catching whales in Antarctic waters, catches that have been discussed by the International Court of Justice with Australia and New Zealand intervening.
