St. Vincent’s Whalers End Orca Hunt

As Japan was unloading its first catch of the whaling season - a female minke whale caught off the coast of eastern Hokkaido - another nation announced it was stopping the hunting of orcas.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean has the largest whaling operation in the Western Hemisphere. Whalers from the town of Barrouallie primarily hunted short-finned pilot whales, orcas and several smaller dolphin species. Whalers from Bequia also pursued migrating humpback whales during the winter months.

St. Vincent is one of just four countries where the International Whaling Commission (IWC) allows whaling to support local communities with the production of food for human consumption and the harvesting of oil for medicine, for cooking and for other household purposes.

But after a decade, the whalers of Barrouallie in St Vincent have decided to stop.

In a landmark decision, negotiated directly with the whalers themselves (rather than the ruling Government), the St. Vincent Times reported that the local whalers submitted a proposal to the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Environment Fund (SVGEF) for funding two Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) to transition to tuna fishing, on the understanding that they would end the orca hunt.

Since 1949, it’s been estimated that whalers in St. Vincent have caught 13,856 cetaceans including 5,896 short-finned pilot whales, 109 orcas, and 7,851 other small cetaceans. Since 1986, St. Vincent’s whalers have caught 45 humpback whales and two Bryde’s whales. Under IWC regulations, the island’s whalers can hunt an average of four humpback whales per year, yet they have hit this target only once in the past two decades. Between 2015 and 2017, the islanders caught just one whale.

The most recent killings were in November 2024 when four orcas, including a lactating mother and two calves, were hunted down.

The communities will continue to hunt so-called “blackfish” - short-finned pilot whales and false killer whales - however, the practice is entirely unregulated, and its long-term sustainability is in question. There is a reported decrease of encounter rate, and hunters now must go travel ever further for their catch, which is usually an indication of overfishing.