Eight out of 50 whales did not die instantly

Two Norwegian veterinarians say that a greater proportion of fin whales die instantly than measurement of the time of death of whales in Norway shows. 42 animals of the 50 that were examined died instantly, but eight lived for 6,5 to 15 minutes until they were shot again.

The result of the measurement of the time to death of whales last summer showed that 42 of the 50 fin whales that were examined died instantly when the bomb lance harpoon of the whalehunters of Hvalur Ltd. hit the animals. Eight fin whales did not die instantly and were shot again. The longest time a shot animal lived was 15 minutes before it was shot again.

This is amongst other things the result of two Norwegian veterinarians who did their work on board the whaling ships of Hvalur Ltd. last summer when measuring the time to death in minke whale and fin whale hunting near Iceland for the Directorate of Fisheries. Those two veterinarians were particularly chosen because of their  many decades of experience in such measuring of Norway's minke whale hunting.

The report of one of them, Dr. Egil Ole Øen, was published at the website of the Directorate of Fisheries earlier this month. There it is revealed that a bit greater proportion of fin whales was killed instantly than in Norway's minke whale hunting. Eyþór Björnsson, the Director of Fisheries, does not want to directly assess the results of the measurements, as the Directorate of Fisheries is an administration body, yet he says that the result is favorable in comparison to the Norwegian results. Further measurements of fin whales is not planned, but Eyþór says that the Norwegians measure the time to death on board their ship every ten years.

Due to bad weather, the minke whale hunters were mostly inactive during the period when the the time to death measurements were planned.  The Directorate of Fisheries intends to recruit the same specialists in order to measure the time to death of the minke whale at the next minke whale hunting season.

The research was done at the request of The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO). The plan is to present the results of the measurements at the expert group meeting on the killing of whales in November this year. Then the results will be compared to similar measurements of other whale species and the success for the hunting practices will be assessed.