News

9. May 2007

Cameras instead Harpoons

On May 8th 2007, eco-acitivist Bernhard Bechter and his team visited the Whale Museum. The 39 year-old Austrian has planned to cycle around Iceland, pulling a coffin painted with the Icelandic flag, to seek the dialog on the contradiction of whale watching and commercial whaling in Iceland. While violating the Icelandic law with his attempt, he was stopped by the police immediately and forced to cover the Icelandic flag with a tape. After long talks with some important advice on Icelandic customs and the necessary changes to the coffin, the tour could finally begin on the 10^th of May 2007. Start and ending point of the tour: Husavik. The message: pointing out the importance of whales and whale watching to the Icelandic economy and the rather unprofitable and image damaging commercial whaling activities. "Whaling will destroy the very successful whale watching business in the long run", he says. The end of the tour will be on May 31^st, 2007, which is the day of the annual meeting of the IWC (International Whaling Commission) in Anchorage, Alaska. Bernhard Bechter and his team's greatest hope is that Iceland stops the commercial hunt of these magnificent creatures once again.

Bernhards anti-whaling campaign is supported by three organisations:Globalance (Austria), Ocean Care (Switzerland), WDCS (Germany)

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