The start of the whaling season in Norway has led to an international outcry with representatives from 12 countries signing a letter of protest submitted to Norway’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday, calling for an end to the practice of commercial whaling in the country.

"The UK and many other countries remain strongly opposed to Norway's existing and unnecessary lethal whaling activities and we urge Norway to stop them," British Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw told Reuters in a statement. “We shall continue to register our disapproval of all these whaling activities, which undermine the moratorium on commercial whaling.”

Norway’s whaling season officially began on April 1, and the country’s quota for hunting minke whales has been increased by the Norwegian government to 1,052—250 more than last year and the highest number in more than two decades.

Bradshaw also spoke out on the quota increase.

“Any announcement of an increase in the 2006 quota is premature and not based upon the best scientific advice,” Bradshaw told Reuters. “It is disappointing that the Norwegian government are putting pressure on their scientists to justify the wide-scale destruction of this species.”

Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Rune Bjaastad disregarded the accusations.

“We cannot really take this seriously,” Bjaastad told Reuters. “We are following procedures to ensure that whaling is within safe quotas.”

A worldwide moratorium on whaling was put in place in 1982 by the International Whaling Commission, but Norway, Japan, and Iceland continue to hunt for whales According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), last week, Japan’s whaling boats killed 863 whales in the Southern Ocean, double what they captured there last year. Japan claims to use their whales for scientific research.

The most recent protest letter to Norway was signed by Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Spain.

Although the Unites States government isn’t involved in this particular protest, on Tuesday a coalition of conservation organizations announced a new campaign to increase awareness within the U.S. about the threats of commercial whaling. Led by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the campaign is calling on the Bush Administration to more aggressively speak out against whaling in countries like Japan and Norway.

“People think that the whales were saved 20 years ago,” IFAW president Fred O’Regan told Outside Online. “But what they don’t realize is that 25,000 whales have been killed in the last two decades.”

In order to raise awareness, the campaign will include a series of television ads and billboards in New York City’s Times Square and on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles during the month of May.

“Do we think that Norway and Japan are going to stop whaling in the next year?” Regan said. “No, probably not. But if we have the resources, we could make a significant dent in the number of whaling deaths in the next three to five years. We just need to push the pressure on.”

For more on whale hunting in Norway, read “Bloody Business” in the May issue of Outside, now on stands, then tell us what you think in our exclusive online poll and forum devoted to the issue.

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