Iceland will suspend hunting of fin whales until September over breaches of the country’s animal welfare rules.
(Bloomberg) — Iceland will suspend hunting of fin whales until September over breaches of the country’s animal welfare rules.
Fisheries’ minister Svandis Svavarsdottir said in a website statement she decided to halt whaling operations, citing a conclusion by an expert advisory board that “the method employed in hunting large whales does not comply with the Act on Animal Welfare.”
A report by the country’s Food and Veterinary Authority last month showed that the killing of animals took longer than allowed by the law, the statement said. It added the ministry will seek the opinion of experts and license holders “to explore possible improvements and legal conditions for setting out further limitations on whaling.”
Iceland remains one of three countries that hunt whales commercially, along with Japan and Norway. Svavarsdottir said last year that the country should end the practice from 2024.
Iceland suspended hunting of fin whales — classified as globally vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature — in 2016 due to a declining market for whale meat in Japan, resuming hunting for the 2018 season, according to a statement from animal rights group Humane Society International/Europe. A single minke whale was killed from 2019-2021, and 148 fin whales in 2022, it said.
“This is a major milestone in compassionate whale conservation,” Ruud Tombrock, HSI/Europe’s executive director, said in the statement. “Humane Society International is thrilled at this news and praises Minister Svavarsdottir for ending the senseless whale killing which will spare hundreds of minke and imperilled fin whales from agonising and protracted deaths.”
–With assistance from Kevin Whitelaw.
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