Success – no fin whaling in Iceland this summer!
Amazing news just coming in from Iceland – Kristjan Loftsson, Iceland’s sole fin whaler, today announced that his company, Hvalur hf, won’t be killing endangered fin whales off Iceland this summer!
Loftsson’s whaling company, Hvalur hf, has killed 706 fin whales since 2006, but hopefully the slaughter has come to an end. Loftsson partly blames difficulties in exporting his meat from Iceland to his only customer, Japan, and also denounces Japanese whale meat analysis methods, claiming “If we had known what was in store in Japan, we would not have started again.”
WDC has long campaigned against commercial whaling of both fin and minke whales in Iceland, and the transit of fin whale meat to Japan. Since 2006, over 7,300 tonnes of fin whale meat and blubber has been exported to Japan. From 2013, protests by WDC forced Loftsson to abandon his preferred route via EU ports and the Suez canal. Instead, in 2014, Hvalur hf exported a record 2,000 tonnes of fin whale meat to Japan, taking a much longer route via the west coast of Africa and around the Cape of Good Hope; whilst in 2015, 1,800 tonnes of fin whale meat was exported to Japan via Russia’s Northeast Passage.
