ed the annual quota of whales for all three groups who submitted
joint bids: Alaskan Inupiat, Russian indigenous people in Chukotka in eastern
Siberia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, despite protestations of delegates
from Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Chile, and Costa Rica. Dominican Republic delegate Peter
Sanchez said the St Vincent and the Grenadines hunt was "artisanal whaling
out of control," and that the hunters have "repeatedly broken the
rules - hunting for young ones and pregnant females." Other delegates pointed out that St
Vincent and the Grenadines bid "should not qualify under ASW rules because
the Bequians, the group that maintains the hunt, are not truly
indigenous." Monaco delegate
Frederic Briand argued that whaling "started by a settler's family as
recently as a 1875 does not qualify as 'aboriginal'." Louise Mitchell Joseph, speaking on
behalf of the Eastern Caribbean
Coalition of Environmental Awareness stated
that there was no documented history of whaling in the islands, and that
"there have been many archaeological excavations conducted, and there was
no evidence found whatsoever of whale hunting by aboriginal peoples. Neither
whale remains nor weapons that could have been used to kill such a large
mammals were ever found; neither are any images of whales inscribed on our
petroglyphs
