Whaling Vs. Whale Watching
Iceland Review has conducted interviews with Konrád Eggertsson, a whaler, and Hördur Sigurbjarnarson, running an Icelandic whale watching company, asking them both the same ten questions.
WDCS believes whale watching and whaling are not the comfortable bed-fellows the whalers would have us believe in this interview. In fact, whaling activities are having a hugely detrimental impact upon the whale watch trade: the whale watch boats report encountering far fewer minkes and are finding that this normally friendly species is much harder to approach.
The domestic market for whalemeat remains very small in Iceland and ironically, it is tourists who are inadvertently helping to keep this cruel industry alive: around 35% of the minke whalemeat on sale last year was consumed by tourists, believing it to be a ‘traditional dish’.
WDCS is working hard to debunk the myths perpetuated by the whalers and to encourage tourists to support whale watching rather than whaling.
Find out more about our anti-whaling campaign.
Source: Iceland Review
