Mark Peter SimmondsDirector of Science

The Icelandic government’s decision to resume whaling allows them to kill over 2,100 whales, ignoring public opposition and animal welfare concerns.

StoryWhale Hunting Whales

An urgent call on the new Icelandic Government to reverse the decision of the interim administration to allow whaling

December 12, 2024

At the end of November 2024, the interim Icelandic government announced that it would resume whaling and that this would encompass both fin and minke whales. Under the new five-year permits, 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales can be caught during each year’s whaling season, potentially resulting in the deaths of more than 2,100 whales over the five years. One permit was issued to the Hvalur hf to hunt fin whales, and the other to the Tjaldtangi ehf to kill minke whales.

A strong and well-reasoned backlash to this has followed both within the island nation itself and across the world, and the key question being asked is can Iceland back out of what seems to be an unsound and unconstitutional decision. Mark Simmonds, OceanCare’s Director of Science, further explains the current rather confusing situation in Iceland and calls on the politicians there to reverse this decision.

The decision to issue these quotas was made by Bjarni Benediktsson, the interim Prime Minister and acting Minister of Food. The fact that he is heading up an administration that is acting in a caretaker capacity whilst a new government is formed, needs to be underlined.

Very Recent Icelandic History

Iceland is in the process of setting up a new government following recent elections. This negotiation typically takes a couple of months and, whilst this is happening, an interim or caretaker government is in place. Whether Benediktsson should have made such an important decision on whaling before the new government is in place is being strongly questioned and especially as it seems likely that the new government – based on its predicted composition – would actually have taken a different view.

In the last couple of years, the whaling issue has been firmly in the forefront of Icelandic politics and the government has put in place reviews and research which were clearly intended to allow it to better understand whaling and all its implications and inform its decisions. However, what makes the timing of this decision all the more remarkable was that a task force – put in place last February by the previous prime minister, Katrína Jakobsdóttir, has not yet finished its work. Its mandate was to examine the legal framework for whaling, including all the Icelandic state’s international obligations.

Furthermore, last year, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, the former Icelandic minister of food did not allow any whaling to proceed for most of the whaling season, a decision based on consideration of animal welfare concerns.

Horrible cruelty

I have commented before on the cruelty of Icelandic whaling and will only reiterate the main points here. Whales are huge and swiftly moving animals and, subsequently, are very difficult to kill by harpoon; they are a moving target in a moving sea. On May 8 last year, the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) published its report on the whaling observed in 2022. They reported that an ‘unacceptable’ proportion of the whales suffered prolonged deaths. Of 58 deaths observed, 14 whales (24%) were shot more than once, while two whales had to be shot four times. Two animals took more than an hour to die and the Median Time to Death (a standard welfare assessment measure) of those whales which did not die instantly was found to be 11.5 minutes.

The MAST report was formally submitted to the Icelandic Council on Animal Welfare in May and, in June, the Council concluded “…that the hunting method used in the take of large whales is not compatible with the provisions of [Icelandic] Act No. 55/2013 on Animal Welfare.” The Council also indicated that it is not possible to improve hunting to such an extent that it can comply with these laws with current vessels, gear and hunting methods.

Permitting commercial whaling is not at all popular

There are other lines of evidence that the Icelandic government really needs to consider, and these include that:

These whales do not belong to Iceland. The fin whales, in particular, are a highly migratory species and pass through the waters of many other countries. In other European waters, including those of the EU and UK, they are highly protected. There is little sympathy for Iceland’s whaling across Europe, with the exception of Norway which is the one other country in the region still taking whales for profit;
The fin whale was hugely impacted by whaling in the past. Because of its large size and high oil yield, once whaling fleets were mechanised and their vessels moved fast enough to be able to catch and process them, fin whales became a major target. Their populations crashed. Worldwide, the fin whale is still designated as vulnerable by the IUCN; the population in the Mediterranean Sea is even listed as endangered;
The International Whaling Commission, which is the appropriate international body, continues to maintain a full and global moratorium on commercial whaling. Iceland’s new quotas have not been set or verified by the IWC; and
There is negligible demand for whale meat in Iceland itself. Most of the whale meat produced in recent year has been exported to Japan (although there are reasons to believe that the market there is actually crashing).

The acting administration appears to have looked for advice from pro-whaling sources and cites the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO), a body set up by those countries of the North Atlantic that promote the continuation of the hunting of marine mammals, as providing evidence that supports the quotas set.

Its is clear that the issue of whaling in Iceland continues to split political parties. Whilst, the Progressive Party continues to support it, this is now a minority party, whereas the parties that won the latest parliamentary elections, and which will probably soon form a new government (the Social Dem Alliance, Reform and the People’s Party), have all declared their opposition to whaling. So, where does the acting Prime Minister get his mandate to precipitously resume whaling?

What is also clear – and surely this is the thing that politicians should have at the forefront of their thinking, is that more than 50% of the Icelandic public now oppose whaling. In fact, in a recent poll only 38% were recorded as still being in favour of the hunting.

Call for reversal of the decision

Bjarni Benediktsson has argued that his decision to issue whaling permits was nothing more than routine processing and his ministry was simply “following the law” and there was no reason to wait for another minister to issue permits based on those same laws (A law incidentally that dates to 1949.) However, we see that a decision has been made on an issue of considerable international and national concern by an interim Prime Minister who can arguably be said to be abusing his power by acting on this matter before the rightful government can act. This matter makes Iceland look rather dysfunctional and it feels ripe for serious legal challenge or a simple reversal of what has been announced.

OceanCare believes that commercial whaling should be relegated to the history books – it is unnecessary, unsustainable and very cruel. OceanCare again calls on Iceland to rethink the decision made by the acting minister and to review and recognise all the evidence presented to it, including that which already clearly shows that whaling is unacceptably cruel.

Update

International protest now includes a message to Iceland from a number of Members of the European Parliament and another from the relevant UK minister.