It is with great sadness that we read this week about the Hvalur hf whaling company catching and killing what is believed to be an endangered blue whale in, what many conservationists are calling a “deplorable act”.
Animal rights campaigners who photographed the whale’s carcass, say it was harpooned and killed off the west coast of Iceland on July 8. The Icelandic government said it was taking the matter “seriously” and that the relevant authorities, which will use DNA testing to confirm the whale’s true identity, are already investigating.
The news, which has gone viral worldwide has shocked many. If confirmed as a blue whale, it would be the first known time one had been deliberately captured and killed in 40 years, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Kristján Thor Juliusson, Iceland’s Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, said: “At present, Icelandic authorities are not in a position to confirm the species, although initial information from the directorate of fisheries in Iceland suggests the animal caught is not likely to be a blue whale but rather a hybrid of a fin whale and a blue whale.” Fin whales are listed as endangered but are not protected.
Charlotte Marshall-Reynolds, Director of Arctic Direct, the UKs leading tour operator to destinations across the Arctic said;
“Iceland leads the rest of the world in so many areas from women’s rights and equality to technological advances however their whaling industry leaves a bitter taste.
“Thousands of tourists travel to Iceland every year to see these beautiful creatures in the wild, they are the biggest animals to have ever existed on Earth and it saddens me greatly that this whale has been killed for no reason, particularly if this is an endangered and protected blue whale.
We do not support whaling in Iceland or anywhere in the world.”
Iceland sells almost all of its whale meat to Japan, one of a handful of countries that reject the international consensus to protect whales. However, if this whale is a blue then this meat can’t be legally shipped anywhere.
Weighing as much as 200 tonnes and stretching up to 30 metres, blue whales were hunted to the brink by commercial whalers from many countries including the UK from the 1940s to the 1960s when they became a protected stock under the International Whaling Commission. That means that all countries, including Iceland agreed not to kill the creatures.
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