this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
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Seems like education-washing the fact that Norway is one of the only countries in the world that still practices commercial whaling, is suspected of enabling illegal whaling, has objected to and ignored moratoriums on whaling from the International Whaling Commission (Of which they are a member nation), and who's annual catch of Minke Whales reportedly includes up to 40% who were pregnant.
The entire commercial whaling industry that is Norway, Japan, Iceland, whatever, kills only about 1,000 whales a year. But hundreds of thousands of whales are dying every year from plastic pollution and noise pollution and boat strikes, and most of all from getting caught up in fishing gear.
To quote freakonomics https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-modern-whaler-speaks-up-update/
That reminds me of the time I visited the Michelin museum in France that was about the history of rubber production. But there were literally ZERO mentions of the people who harvested the rubber, and all of the colonialism and slavery it involved. When I asked the docent if I missed a section they seemed genuinely surprised like it was the first time they had ever thought about where rubber comes from.
The museum is funded by a combination of private money and local public education subsidies, but it is not in public ownership.
Everything depends on how they actually tackle that topic in their exhibition. You could absolutely criticise whaling while being in a country where whaling still exists. That museum would be a great opportunity to get public attention on the problem. Nobody knows though if that is the case, since it is not even open yet.
Absolutely, I live in the USA which is IIRC right behind Norway on the small list of commercial whaling offenders. Actually when I was in high school I lived on Long Island where there's a whaling museum that has nothing to do with modern industry and was all about the history of an extinct local industry. But it's literally a small renovated colonial farmhouse, the big swanky design of this thing suggests a very large amount of money, which does not give me hope for it's messaging.
Don't worry, the way the Norwegian government operates, this will take 400 years to build and cost roughly all the resources in the universe (first estimate).
It's like how they hold up this image of being an incredibility green country that gets most of it energy from renewable sources while exporting massive ammounts of oil to other countries, because somehow that doesn't count
Hope that roof is harpoon proof
Truthiness aside, I have to say this is one of the most Internet comments I have ever read.
There’s tons of minke whales though. We barely catch anything. It’s not a popular ingredient so it’s just a few old whalers who take less than we have quotaed for
Oh, well if it’s below their quota…
(This poster has also been caught defending human genocide before as well. They just suck.)
The Norwegian government allows for the harvest of 1,400 minke whales a year. The minke is not at all an endangered species. We usually take half that though. Because the demand isn’t great
It’s a literal drop in the ocean