By Lars Bevanger In Norway

Merete Berntsen has tried to reach husband Tor on the mobile phone but he is now out of reach and will probably be so until the end of June.

Late last week he and his father boarded their boat - the Freno - and left the small northern Norwegian town of Stamsund for the new whaling season.

The men were depressed. Whaling is in their blood

Merete Berntsen, member of whaling family

On the other side of the world in Shimonoseki in Japan, the International Whaling Commission again refused membership to Norway's fellow whaling nation, Iceland.

As a member, Iceland could well tip a vote in favour of lifting the moratorium on commercial whaling.

Mrs Berntsen cannot see why that would be a bad thing.

"All scientific surveys show there is plenty of minke whale out there. It is only natural we should harvest some of them, like in any other agricultural or fishing industry."

A generational heritage

But, to the Berntsen family, whaling is far from just a matter of subsistence. Like most Norwegian whaling families, they have been fishermen and whalers for generations, and feel they are looking after a cultural heritage as well as keeping the local industry alive.

Tor Berntsen is now captain on the boat his father and uncles owned and ran before him. His own son, now 11, made his first whaling trip aged nine.

Nowadays he talks of little else, and there is no doubt in his mind what he will do when he grows up.

A small industry

This is not whaling on an industrial scale. A typical whaling boat is 20 metres (60 feet) long - it is an ordinary fishing boat fitted with a harpoon during the summer months when ordinary fishing is low.

There are between 30 and 35 of these boats in the whole country.

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The crew typically consists of four men. For them this is the highlight of the year, when the chore of setting and dragging nets gives way to the excitement of hunting down, then shooting, a large animal.

Nobody in these small communities likes to think what would happen to them if whaling was banned completely.

Depression

Merete Berntsen remembers when the Norwegian Government suspended whaling between 1987 and 1993, awaiting new research on the sustainability of the activity.

"The men were depressed. Whaling is in their blood," she said. "To make ends meet, when the cod fishing season ended in May, they had to leave home until September for the Arctic sea to catch other fish all summer.

It is only natural we should harvest some of them, like in any other agricultural or fishing industry

Merete Berntsen, member of whaling family

"Now they fill their whaling quota between late May and the end of June, and come home to enjoy their families during the school holidays. It is good for everyone involved."

Tor Berntsen's quota of minke whales this year is 16 animals, out of a total of 674 whales. The total population of minke whale in the areas where Norwegian whaling takes place is estimated to be about 112,000 animals.

Nothing will convince him, his wife Merete, or any of the other Norwegian whalers that what they are doing is wrong.