Norwegian whalers have finished their season and harpooned only half their quota of 1,052 minke whales for 2006, prompting hunt opponents to say that Norwegian demand for eating the meat had sunk. A total of 523 whales were killed.

Oslo, which resumed commercial hunts of minke whales in 1993 despite an international moratorium, angered many nations this year by raising its quota to 1,052 - the highest in two decades and above recent years at about 750.

However Norway's parliament has long-term plans to raise minke catches back to historical levels, around 1,800 a year. The High North Alliance said the main reason for the 2006 shortfall was that hunters did not catch a single whale of a quota of 443 around the North Atlantic island of Jan Mayen, halfway to Greenland. Britain led a protest by 12 nations also including Spain and New Zealand this year saying the 1,052 quota was premature and not based on the best scientific advice. Oslo rejected the protest, saying minke whales were plentiful.

Whaling nations, led by Japan and Norway, won a victory at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in St. Kitts and Nevis in June by winning a slim pro-whaling majority for the first time in two decades. Luckily, the vote did not affect the moratorium on hunts.

Japan's scientific whaling fleet returned to port yesterday - August 21 - laden with over 2,000 tonnes of whale meat following a three-month hunt that killed almost every whale in sight.

Figures released by Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) show that the hunters killed up to 75 per cent of the whales sighted over more than 10,000 nautical miles of ocean. Conducted between 24th May and 16th August the whalers killed 256 minke, sei, sperm and Bryde's whales.