No Whale Slaughter Witnessed by Tourists, Claims Norwegian Whaling Boat Skipper

Several tourists are said to have reacted when they believed they witnessed the slaughter of whales from their cruise ship earlier this week.

– That is as far from the truth as you can get. The facts are simply wrong.

That’s what Nils Jørgen Larsen says, skipper of the boat “Nystrand”, after the crew dismembered a whale in the inner harbor of Honningsvåg, opposite the cruise ship MS “Boletti” earlier this week.

700 British tourists on the cruise ship witnessed the bloody scene, and several of them thought they had seen whale slaughter up close. Although whaling is part of Norwegian cultural heritage, it is illegal in large parts of the world.

– Then it does cause a stir that a whale is parted close to a cruise ship, says tourism manager at Visit Nordkapp, Martin Hansen.

He had several inquiring and upset tourists at his door on Tuesday.

– They have not seen slaughter, no shooting or anything like that, counters Captain Larsen.

Finnmarksposten mentioned the matter Wednesday.

He confirms that at one point the boat was near the harbor and the cruise ship MS “Bolletti”. However, no whales were slaughtered or shot there, says the skipper:

– What they saw from the tourist boat was that we took the meat down into the hold. We went in there to have a little laugh, because it was so rough outside the harbor there. We don’t put the crew’s lives at risk just because of tourists.

Have a relaxed attitude to the situation

Larsen says that they were later docked at the quay. Then there were several tourists who had come with questions. He is used to people being against whaling.

– Some people cannot bear to see whales being caught. Many are against whaling, but many do not know what they are talking about. It’s a shame the tourist doesn’t get to taste this delicious product.

– We have a relaxed attitude to this situation. We are allowed to do everything we have done, he says.

However, there have been other things that have caused problems for the whalers this year.

– What we struggle with the most is the weather. In addition, we had to wait 45 days to get ammunition, because of the war. It has been a tight start this year, he concludes.

– A bad mix

Tourism manager Hansen, who had to answer exactly what it was what the tourists had witnessed, most of them refer to as very curious.

– Several of the tourists from the ship became curious and asked questions such as “How many whales are you allowed to kill?” – and said that they had seen the slaughter of whales in the boat next to it, Hansen tells VG.

He describes the whole thing as undramatic, and says that people usually understand that whaling is part of society and tradition there.

However, this does not apply to everyone, and Hansen can understand that some people react.

– Tourism depends on trust and reputation. Then it must be fair to say that whaling and cruise ships can be a bad mix. And even if the Directorate of Fisheries says it is fine, they would hardly have said so if slaughter had taken place on Karl-Johan, he notes and concludes:

– In any case, we have the greatest respect for those who live from the sea, after all it is the love of the sea that sustains the settlement here in the north.