Pitiless slaughter of magnificent minke whales for meat no-one wants: How I harpooned the viking whalers



When I began reporting on the environment for the BBC, I was inclined to avoid the more obvious themes: the rainforest, ozone, the drying of Central Asia's Aral Sea.



Surely they are hyped or old, covered to the point of boredom?



But one editor is particularly interested in my doing a report on whaling. Sitting in his office, it's easy to say yes.



Norway is the closest whaling nation, so I board the whaler Reinebuen at the port of Tromso and unwittingly begin what will become one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.

Sea of shame: A minke whale is hauled on board the Reinebuen to be butchered for its meat

Up on deck, skipper Bjorn Andersen is busy. In a brief moment of calm, I ask him to show me our likely route: out of Tromso, up towards North Cape, the top of Europe, on towards the border with Russia.



We'll be there in a day or two, he says.



Then I raise the question I really want answered: how rough will it be?



'Not too bad,' says Bjorn, 'it's a good time of year.' It is May.



Up at the bow, we film Bjorn working on a harpoon. In the winter, Bjorn and his crew fish for cod and herring, but when their quotas are filled they turn to hunting whales.



Their target is minke whales, among the smallest of the species. We've been given unusual permission to join an expedition to record how it's done.



This season, there's a quota of 700 minke whales.



I'd grown up with the campaign to save the whale. Whaling seemed so obviously wrong back then but I've given it little thought since. So I ask Bjorn whether he thinks killing whales is right.



'We eat the cows,' he says, 'so why not the whales? It's better than farming in a factory.'



And he adds what he hopes will be an overwhelming argument: whale meat is free-range, it's natural.



You can call it "organic". I smile at the ingenuity of the pitch.



While it may be true that the minke population in this part of the ocean is relatively healthy, there is another fundamental issue, one that has continued to fuel the passion to stop whaling: that it's less about numbers and more about objecting to a practice that is simply inhumane, that it's immoral to kill these gentle, giant mammals.



Bjorn breaks off from the conversation because he's having trouble preparing the harpoon.



What he has to do is insert a heavy steel spear, about 3ft long, into the weapon. To ensure it flies out rapidly, Bjorn has to wrestle it in.



Horrifying: The BBC's David Shukman was struck by the gruesome spectacle of whaling

Despite the cold, he's sweating. Next comes the fitting of the deadliest part of the weapon.



The spear will penetrate the whale's thick skin but that won't kill it. So, at the tip of the spear, Bjorn fits an explosive charge about the size of a tin can. I ask him where he aims. The heart, not the head, he says.



He admits accuracy can't be guaranteed. The whale only breaks the surface briefly, and the boat is always moving.



It's real hunting. The Norwegians say that in nearly all cases, this technique - a hand grenade exploding inside the heart - kills the whale instantaneously, that very few of the animals take longer than two minutes to die.



The official line is that it takes one shot for a neat death with no pain, a claim that protesters have long dismissed as propaganda.



I mention to Bjorn that David Attenborough has written movingly of our inability to hear the whales suffering.



If we could hear their screams, he wrote, there's no way whaling would be allowed. Bjorn shrugs - 'You'll see' - and leads us to supper.



We bunch around a table, cameraman Martin Roberts, four Norwegians and me. We left port only a few hours ago, yet most of the meal looks as if it's been cooked from frozen.



Only the small potatoes are fresh: small and fairly new, they are cooked with their skins on. I watch amazed as these tough men delicately peel away the skins with their knives and forks, a fiddly task which brings to mind the daintiest of tea parties.



Conversation is awkward: the crewmen think we're in the way, asking too many questions.



Any mention of the anti-whaling movement produces a look of loathing. Bjorn's cousin tells a story of two French journalists who once came on board.



They were so seasick they had to leave. The crewmen pause in their potato-peeling to laugh, and Martin and I feel obliged to join in. Within hours, we'll feel like crying.



We go to bed. The note of the engine keeps changing - reversing, revving, slowing. I realise the boat must be manoeuvring.



This can only mean the crew have either just killed a whale or they're about to. We race upstairs to find the worst has happened.



We've missed the big event. If there's one thing worse than seeing a whale harpooned, it's being a news team that sleeps through it.



I'm furious the crew didn't wake us, as promised, and even more angry when I think through the implications: without filming the harpoon being fired, there's no way we can leave this purgatory.



As that thought sinks in, the adrenaline of the past few minutes wears off and my innards remind me of the Arctic swell. Within seconds Martin and I are hanging over the railing.

Magnificent mammal: A minke whale breaches the ocean surface, but such animals prove no match for the harpoons of the Norwegian whalers

This time Bjorn can't resist a jibe: 'You Englishmen, you are like women.'



His crew roar approval. It occurs to me that we've ended up on a modern-day version of a Viking longboat.



I want to come back with a clever riposte but my mind, like my belly, is empty.



Another day passes and Martin is in marginally worse shape than me, too weak to curse the Norsemen, too sick to come on deck.



So when I hear the battle cry go up - 'Het Waal' - signalling that a whale has been spotted, I know I'll be doing the filming.



At the bow, Bjorn is gripping the harpoon, eyes scanning the waves of the Norwegian Sea, off the North Cape.



Everyone is tense, poised for a sight of the whale. There's a flash of black off to one side and a lot of yelling.



I switch on the camera. The sheen on the water is dazzling, the swell still nauseating.



I have no idea where to point so I choose the widest possible setting, including in the frame Bjorn and the harpoon and a big expanse of sea.



I spot the rise of a black shape in the trough between two waves. Then there's a deafening bang and a cloud of smoke brings the whiff of high explosive.



The boat stops. Bjorn peers over the side. I move closer but he waves me back. I've no idea if the whale has been hit. But then I see Bjorn picking up his rifle.



Earlier he'd told me he only uses it if the animal does not die instantly. Clearly he needs to finish it off but it's in the wrong position for him to open fire so the boat has to move.



I imagine the whale in agony. I keep the camera running. Bjorn fires two shots, then three more.



The whole process, from firing the harpoon to the last shots, has lasted well over two minutes; the camera's timecode is irrefutable evidence.



The crew use long hooks to bring the whale to the loading ramp at the side of the boat. Bjorn had missed the heart.



Ropes are lashed around the whale's tail and it is hauled on board by a winch. The animal is much longer than the boat is wide, so when its belly is on the deck, its head hangs over the side and a stream of blood flows into the sea.



I notice a massive eye, staring lifeless at the sky. The gulls are gathering.



It falls to the cook to handle the butchery. His first action is to cut open the whale's belly. It's a female so it could be pregnant.



The knife enters the pale skin, just below the chest, and draws a red line down towards the tail.



There is no foetus, but the belly is full of shrimp and the stench hits me hard.



After removing its innards, the cook sets about carving out the fillets, which are the size of railways sleepers - the largest steaks in the world.



Steam rises into the air. Blood is now flowing in torrents, the crewmen's rubber boots sloshing through streams of red.

The steaks are laid on the deck to cool. The rest of the whale is unwanted, so the massive carcass slides off the ship and crashes into the sea. I hope for a final sight of that massive, sad eye, but the gulls are swarming too thickly.



Bjorn is excited. This early haul will help cover his costs and, if he's in the right area, he'll land a lot more.



I ask him whether he feels anything for the whale. 'Do you feel anything for a cow?' he responds.



But what about all the blood, and the risk that the whale was in calf?



'Well, it wasn't in calf,' he says. 'And you get the same amount of blood in any slaughterhouse, you just don't see it,' he replies.



But what about the length of time it took the whale to die?



'It wasn't so long.' But, I explain, I timed it on the camera. Bjorn grimaces. 'You're right,' he agrees, 'this time it took longer than two minutes, that's unusual.'



The whale wasn't able to scream but the pictures will.



Our job is done and although Bjorn would love to be rid of us, he's also reluctant to leave this spot.



Initially he offers to drop us at some place a few miles away, but when I check the map I realise it's an island, so I object.



After much argument, we settle on Europe's northernmost village, Gamvik. Lying on the cold concrete of the harbour, still queasy, we watch the Reinebuen race back to the hunt.

The whale meat is natural, and this particular catch, if tightly limited, is possibly sustainable.



But compared to the mechanised slaughter of an abattoir, this is hit-and-miss.



As in ancient times, aim is everything and what I witnessed was a bungled shot and a horribly slow death, an example of how whaling can be inhumane.

After my report is aired, a Minister quotes from it in a debate about whaling in the House of Commons.



The Norwegians, used to this kind of criticism, increase the quota the following year, even though the evidence suggests the hunt isn't worth it.



That's because Bjorn and the rest of Norway's whalers land more meat than Norwegians eat.



It's on sale in supermarkets but does not fly from the shelves. One consignment of whale blubber, offered to Japan, was refused because it contained too many contaminants - the deadly chemical acronyms of modern industrial life, the PCBs and the PAHs, toxic by-products of fossil fuels.



So I wonder about the real motive behind the killing. There's no single answer, but the national pride of a seafaring nation is a factor; another is the need to woo voters in fishing communities.



It's certainly not about getting meat to Norwegian tables.



I've left the ship with relief and a sense of futility: wasted effort, needless cruelty, pointless slaughter.



Martin and I are slumped on our bags, waiting for a lift to the local airport. Martin asks me whether I was sick in the bathroom the night before. I wasn't. But he asks again, because he insists someone was.



We puzzle over this until a glorious reality dawns. If it wasn't him or me, then it must have been one of the Norwegians.



At last I have a riposte to Bjorn - too late, but cheering nonetheless. It isn't just Englishmen who are like women. Vikings get seasick, too.

