View From a Whaling Boat: Death Comes to Denizen of the Deep : Norway: First foreign journalist since the hunt resumed in 1993 is allowed aboard to watch a kill. Nation has endured protests, consumer boycotts and sabotage because it refuses to comply with an international ban.

A shout of “whale” from the deck sends Eilert Nilsen tumbling from his impossibly small bunk in the bow of the whaling boat Senet.

In seconds, the Norwegian wiggles into orange coveralls and heavy parka and climbs up a flimsy ladder to his post in the crow’s-nest, on top of the mast, 30 feet above the deck.

“There. Starboard,” Nilsen shouts, pointing a mitten. The whale’s black back breaks the surface for a quick breath.

The 56-foot Senet is 370 miles north of the Arctic Circle and about 1,250 miles from home, far from the angry demonstrations against Norway’s resumption of commercial whaling in 1993 after a six-year break.

Norway has endured protests, consumer boycotts and sabotage, arguing the hunt for minke whales is a coastal tradition that simply uses a plentiful natural resource.

Opponents demand that Norway respect a non-binding whaling ban imposed in 1986, especially after its admission this spring that it overestimated minke numbers off its coast by 20%. Other foes of the hunt, often the most angry, say whales are special creatures that should not be killed no matter what their numbers.

The Senet’s crew knows the bitterness of the debate better than anyone.

Last year, the Senet--which fishes for shrimp most of the year--became Norway’s best-known whaling boat.

It was sabotaged and nearly sunk at its wharf. The California-based Sea Shepherd group claimed responsibility.

The tiny, slow-moving Senet was later hounded through the North Sea by two Greenpeace ships, looking like a toy by comparison. When five Greenpeace members boarded from rubber boats, the Senet’s three crewmen threw at least one boarder into the sea and the others jumped.

“It was pretty nerve-racking,” said harpooner Sigurd Grundvig.

Like the other whalers, he says the protests are not justified because there are plenty of minke whales. Opponents of the hunt dispute that.

Whatever the number, it is about to be reduced by one.

Grundvig, 45, mans the harpoon cannon in the bow. He scans the often stormy but now still waters of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway. He checks his watch. This minke whale surfaces every five minutes--like clockwork--to breathe.

The crew has waited weeks for this moment. Kept in port by storms, they languished aboard the crowded, 37-year-old wooden boat before heading out to prowl vast tracts of ocean in search of the whales’ migration path from the Equator to the arctic.

“Whale hunting is 90% waiting,” says Arvid Enghaugen, the Senet’s 43-year-old owner and skipper. “First we have to have good weather. Then we have to find the migration. Then we have to find a whale. Then we have to get it.”

After all the waiting, Grundvig has about 1 1/2 seconds to spot the whale, decide whether it is big enough to be worth shooting, aim, and fire his heavy cannon.

He fires.

The 26-pound harpoon, trailing a rope, strikes the whale. There is a puff of smoke and spray from the shock grenade on the tip of the harpoon exploding deep in the whale’s head.

The whale bursts from the water, writhing in its death throes. It twists, turns and sinks, its broad tail disappearing last. It is winched in, and Grundvig shoots it in the brain with a hunting rifle. The whale’s blood turns the water red.

Opponents say harpooning is cruel, but Grundvig, a hunter on land as well, claims the explosion usually kills or stuns immediately and the rope on the harpoon prevents a wounded whale from escaping to suffer a slow death.

“We have very good control. If the whale shows any sign of life, we winch it in and shoot it,” he says.

The whale is dead, but there is no elation on board. If anything, there is quiet relief. It is the boat’s third whale since the nearly two-month season opened May 2, but the first in weeks. The Senet has a quota of five whales.

Nilsen, who started whaling 21 years ago at age 17, says a kill probably looks horrible to outsiders.

“I keep a few sheep at home. Sometimes I have to kill one [for food]. I don’t like it, but it has to be done. It’s the same with the whales,” he said.

The crew winches the 28-foot, roughly 11,000-pound, whale on board, causing the boat to creak and list. The whale’s head hangs over one side, with the harpoon still sticking out. Its stump of a tail--the crew has already sliced off its fins--hangs over the other side.

Veterinarian Olav Breck, 35, takes measurements and samples. He is a government inspector, like those aboard all 33 of Norway’s boats to watch over the hunt.

The crew peels off the one inch of blubber and then--with the calm efficiency of neighborhood butchers--fills the deck with huge chunks of red meat, often weighing more than 150 pounds each.

“He’s a thin fellow,” Nilsen tells another whale boat by radio.

Two hours later, the stripped skeleton is dumped over the side, where sea gulls float, ready to squabble for scraps.

The whale, a male, provides about 3,500 pounds of meat, which will bring about $8,200 when sold for human consumption. Blubber also will be sold. None of the meat or blubber is allowed to be exported, even though there is a big market for them in Japan.

“Was that so awful? Was that worth all the fuss?” Enghaugen asks afterward. Whales provide half his annual income, he says.

The crew hoses blood and meat scraps off the deck and immediately resumes the hunt.

The sea is calm.

“Good whale weather,” Enghaugen says.

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BACKGROUND

Norway allowed commercial whaling for the third straight year in defiance of international protests. An Associated Press reporter recently spent 11 days on a boat hunting whales off Norway’s arctic region, the first foreign journalist allowed on a Norwegian boat since the hunts resumed in 1993.