OSLO - Norwegian authorities called Wednesday on the country's whaling industry to counter the dramatic drop over the past decade in the number of boats partaking in the annual whale hunts. The number of Norwegian vessels actively hunting whales has shrunk from 33 in 2001 to just 19 last year, Norway's Directorate of Fisheries said in a statement.

"The authorities are therefore stressing the importance of the sector itself working to recruit new participants," it said.

Whales have been protected by a global moratorium on hunting since 1986, but Norway does not abide by the ban.

In a bid to sustain a small market, the government in Oslo has meanwhile gradually increased the annual whaling quotas in recent years.

In 2011, it authorized hunters to cull 1,286 Minke whales, up from 549 of the small whales hunters were allowed to take a decade earlier.

But with the number of whalers in free-fall the industry has increasingly had trouble filling its swelling quota.

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