Another close call for the whaling moratorium.

At the 58th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in June, member countries voted 33 to 32 in favor of a resolution declaring the international ban on commercial whaling "no longer necessary." As in previous years, however, conservation-minded nations backed by public opinion managed to prevent the resolution from winning the two-thirds majority necessary to overturn the 1986 ban.

Three nations persist in whaling despite the ban. Japan exploits a loophole in the IWC rules that allows hunting whales for "scientific" purposes and practices large-scale whaling even within so-called whale sanctuaries. Norway and Iceland whale under a formal objection to the IWC moratorium. In total, more than 24,000 whales have been killed since 1985, and catch numbers continue to grow.

Japan typically is most heavily condemned for its whaling practices because of the size and scope of its operations, but in April the United Kingdom led a coalition of 12 countries in formally opposing Norway's whaling practices. For its part, Norway claims that the only whale it hunts, the minke, is in plentiful supply in the North Atlantic, with the 2006 catch representing only about 1 percent of the total stock. "The quota is based on cautious estimates," argues Karsten Klepsvik, the country's whaling commissioner.

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Japan, like Norway, cites its own scientific research to defend rising catch numbers and has accused the Western media of misrepresenting the facts. The governments of both nations argue that minke whales, which feed in waters rich in other marine life, deplete the commercial fishing stock. But many governments, scientists, nongovernmental organizations, and other groups insist that whaling nations are not using the best science to back their arguments.