Aug. 25, 2010 - The Humane Society of the United States praised the California legislature’s passage Tuesday of a joint resolution asking the President and the U.S. Congress to stand firm against any proposals to lift the quarter-century old moratorium on commercial whaling. The measure, Assembly Joint Resolution 44, expressed the legislature’s disapproval of the U.S. delegation’s negotiations in support of a proposal to sanction commercial whaling by Japan, Iceland and Norway in exchange for their promise of a reduction in whales fished.
The resolution – authored by Assemblymember Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo – took special note of California’s status as a coastal state whose ocean waters support blue whales, gray whales, pilot whales, fin whales, humpbacks and orcas, and its strong cultural and economic stakes in ecotourism built around whale watching. The Assembly approved the measure by a 57 to 16 vote, and the state’s Senate ratified it by a 23-11 margin.
“We applaud the California legislature for communicating its commitment to a future in which whales are safe from all current threats, but especially from commercial whaling, which is inimical to our state’s fundamental goals of protecting marine mammal populations and the ocean environment that is their home,” said Jennifer Fearing, California senior state director for The HSUS.
The HSUS’s global arm, Humane Society International, sent a team to the International Whaling Commission’s June 2010 meeting in Agadir, Morocco, to work to uphold the moratorium, and has long played a role in whale protection work throughout the world.
Website: www.humanesociety.org
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