http://www.wdcs.org/view_e_protest.php?e_protest_select=26&&select=415

URGENT - help us save the lives of humpback whales‏

Dear Friend

Please help WDCS call on the USA to stand together with its European Allies in opposing Greenland’s expansion of its hunt!

We write this direct from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Portugal where we urgently need your help

The USA delegation has been trying to bring pressure to bear on the European Union countries to support the Danish application on behalf of Greenland to expand its hunt to include humpback whales.

It would appear that the commitments of the new USA Administration have not reached the USA IWC delegation. We are still waiting to see the new administration’s positive impact at the IWC.

President Obama pledged to make decisions based on sound science – yet his delegation seems poised to accept an arbitrary, last-minute proposal that has not been given full scientific scrutiny.

You have already helped secure a large number of European votes to protect these humpbacks. Please help us ensure that the USA does not undo all that good work you have already achieved.

Please send this urgent action alert now - EVERY email will count.

Thank you again for your support.

 Chris Butler-Stroud

Chief Executive

WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

http://www.wdcs.org/view_e_protest.php?e_protest_select=26&&select=415

We are calling on the United States and the member nations of the European Union to oppose Denmark's Greenland proposal to kill 10 humpback whales a year, under the banner of aboriginal subsistence whaling (AWS).To:
President Obama
Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary Of State For European Affairs
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
president@whitehouse.gov

CC: Mr Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs

The USA must stand up for humpbacks

Dear President Obama,

I write to you to bring your attention to the actions of the US Government delegation to the International Whaling Commission’s 61st meeting taking place in Portugal as you read this.

We are calling on the United States and the member nations of the European Union to oppose Denmark's Greenland proposal to kill 10 humpback whales a year, under the banner of aboriginal subsistence whaling (AWS).

Please stick to the rules

Conservation and animal welfare NGOs do not oppose ASW proposals based on legitimate subsistence needs that have been fully considered by the IWC. The Danish proposal falls far short of the usual standards applied within IWC, indeed far short of the requirements imposed upon US Inupiat citizens in Alaska. In particular:

• there has been no substantive or rational needs statement presented to the IWC for review
• that arguments are based on insufficient, contradictory and unvalidated data
• the proposal would blur the distinctions between commercial and aboriginal subsistence whaling
• there is no agreed conversion factor for calculating the amount of edible products produced per whale, a key component in assigning quotas based on subsistence needs.

After last year’s vote rejecting the same proposal, the international community was expecting Denmark to come forward with a properly grounded proposal for an extension of its aboriginal subsistence whaling quota. Instead, Denmark submitted the Greenland proposal at the last minute, depriving member states and the IWC technical committee to fairly evaluate it.

Greenland’s hunt is the only ASW take that is based on a request per tonnage of whale meat, and the conservationists believe that Members of the IWC have no other option than to oppose the Danish request. The adoption of this humpback whaling would set a precedent opening a door for any arbitrary quota request to be approved, whether or not based on science and framed within the rules of the IWC. The IWC would be seen to apply different standards for different indigenous peoples, thus threatening the overall public acceptance of this whaling category, which would cause a detrimental fall-out effect for the Alaskan Inupiat bowhead whale hunt.

In now forcing a controversial vote on such a highly sensitive topic, Denmark is recklessly risking the good working atmosphere at this year’s meeting of the IWC, which so far has achieved consensus on a number of different topics.

Currently the USA delegation is seen to act no differently than it did under the Bush administration. We are still waiting to see the new Administration’s positive impact at the IWC. President Obama you pledged to make decisions based on sound science – yet your delegation seems poised to accept an arbitrary, last-minute proposal that has not been given full scientific scrutiny.

We call upon the United States to ensure that the right to continue whaling for subsistence is allowed for certain indigenous communities (exempt from the ban on commercial whaling) and that cultural needs are not hijacked for political and economic purposes.

Yours sincerely

http://www.wdcs.org/view_e_protest.php?e_protest_select=26&&select=415