Iceland Won’t Hunt Whales This Summer
For the first time in seventeen years, Iceland’s whalers have decided to forgo whaling. And therein lies a tale.
Iceland’s whaling is the province of Kristján Loftsson, the richest man in Iceland due to his many fisheries interests. The whaling policy in Iceland has largely been shaped by this man’s ego and vested interests.
Iceland never objected to the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, which was approved in 1982 and went into effect in the 1985-86 Antarctic season. Like Japan, however, Iceland issued scientific permits to its whaling companies and killed 386 fin and sei whales in the North Atlantic between 1986 and 1989.
Iceland left the IWC, under fire, for their so-called “research” program in 1992.
Ten years later, Iceland did an about-face and rejoined the IWC in 2002. The legality of this move was highly questionable. When Iceland rejoined the IWC in 2002, they took the “exception” to the moratorium. An IWC member nation can take “exceptions” to rules they don't agree with and legally need not abide by such rules.
The IWC accepted Iceland’s membership by one vote, having previously rejected Iceland’s qualified membership twice. That one vote was supplied by – Iceland! A very poor legal call from the IWC Chairman at that time allowed Iceland to vote on its own membership application.
Iceland pledged to refrain from commercial whaling before 2006 when taking the exception to the moratorium, but immediately began whaling for “scientific purposes.”
After a few seasons of “scientific” whaling (2003 to 2007), the Icelandic whalers began killing whales in earnest for commercial purposes. Since the moratorium, Iceland has killed 17,000 whales.
The hunts are of dubious significance, with some economic studies concluding that the hunts actually lose money. In recent years, Icelandic whalers have concentrated on killing minke whales and endangered fin whales.
Several whales were killed last year that appear to be blue whales, another highly endangered species and a violation of Icelandic law. Icelandic fisheries authorities claim the whales were actually blue/fin whale hybrids, which hardly excuses the catches.
The minke whales are for “domestic” consumption, although few Icelanders ever consume it. Most of the meat goes to restaurants that cater to tourists. The whalers announced in June that they were not going whaling this summer due to the low market demand for whale meat, with the company announcing they would instead focus on sea cucumbers.
Fin whales are caught exclusively to export to Japan, a violation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) as well as the IWC moratorium. Last year, Iceland killed 11 pregnant fin whales. But Japan has not always accepted the fin whale shipments due to quality considerations, and this year the Icelandic government’s permits came too late for the whalers to repair their whaling vessels in time for the season.
Ironically, Iceland also has a very active whale watching tourist industry, which directly competes with the whalers. The industry and the general Icelandic tourist industry have been critical of Iceland’s continued whaling. Even Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has come out opposing continued whaling.
The whalers are expected to be back next summer, harpoon guns loaded.
Many organizations, including the International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute, have encouraged efforts to pressure the Icelandic government to ending whaling permanently.
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