The first victims could be landed on Sunday. For the first time in two years, a ship left the mainland to go whaling on Saturday, June 20. An operation, denounced by the International Fund for the Protection of Animals (IFAW) in an increasingly tense context around this issue (new window).
Along with Japan and Norway, Iceland is one of the few countries in the world to continue to practice this fishing, 40 years after the entry into force of the moratorium on commercial whaling that prohibits the practice.
But on the small island, the question is delicate: in 2024 and 2025, no hunting campaign was conducted. In 2023, the government had suspended hunting after a report (new window) pointing out methods that did not comply with the Animal Welfare Act.
According to the government veterinary agency, the explosive harpoons used by hunters to catch cetaceans caused prolonged agony, which could last up to five hours. If Reykjavík eventually reauthorized the activity for the common whale and the Minke whale, it retained its ban for the blue whale.
« Politican » question?
This year, the resumption of whaling appears « highly political, »
suspects Andreas Dinkelmeyer, campaign manager at IFAW who has been working on the issue of whales for 25 years.
The ship set out at sea on Saturday belongs to the Hvalur hf company, the last major Icelandic whaling company, which hunts in particular the common whale, the second largest animal in the world after the blue whale, which can measure up to 27 meters in length and is classified as a « vulnerable » species.
The company has a quota of 150 whales this year. Its owner, Kristján Loftsson, had decided to interrupt the fishing campaigns in 2024 and 2025, saying he did not find economic interest in them. But as national and international pressure to end this hunt is getting more and more pressing – Iceland could re-examine legislation on this subject in the fall – the entrepreneur may want to send a message.READ ALSOArrest of « pirate » Paul Watson: why is the whale hunt so decried?
« We wonder if he pursues hidden objectives, such as using whaling to fuel a political debate, whales then serving as collateral victims,
» says Andreas Dinkelmeyer. He wants to show that the practice still exists and that it is still an economic activity. But I’m not sure he needs to hunt whales this year – his freezers still have to be full of the last fishing campaigns. But if it doesn’t come out in 2026, it could be easy for the Icelandic government to prove that whaling is no longer of interest. »
A particular context
Especially since whaling has become a rather unprofitable activity. Especially since Japan, which relaunched the practice in 2019 (new window), no longer supplies itself from Reykjavik and the average consumption of Icelanders in whale meat is estimated at just over a few hundred kilos per year.
Faced with this low yield, IFAW denounces « a practice that is both useless, cruel and inhumane »,
with « hunted whales »
that « suffer great suffering and, often, long agony after being pursued over long distances, then struck by a harpoon ».
Andreas Dinkelmeyer, on the other her part, regrets this new release. « It’s a devastating setback. The government had a clear opportunity to end, or at least hinder, whale hunting this season, and it missed this opportunity. This useless and brutal hunt is scandalous and cannot be justified under any circumstances. »
For the time being, fishing licenses in Iceland are in force until 2029. Until then, the issue could be invited into a more delicate debate: Iceland must hold, on August 29, a referendum on a resumption of negotiations to join the European Union and become the 28th Member State of the EU. If the road is still long, the continuation of whaling on the island could well appear as a blocking point against the Twenty-Seven, signatories of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
source : TF1 info
