Iceland’s only active whaling company, Hvalur hf. is reportedly canceling this summer’s fin whale hunt. This marks the second consecutive year the company has opted out of whaling during the summer season. Another whaling company, Tjaldtangi ehf., was granted permits to hunt minke whales but has ceased operations.
Hvalur has been granted a permit by the government of Iceland to hunt 200 fin whales this season. Its CEO, Kristján Loftsson, says the decision to end the whale hunt was made due to the global economic situation. Hvalur has not caught fin or minke whales since 2022.
Hvalur hf. exports almost all of its whale meat to Japan. However, Loftsson, told Icelandic media Morgunblaðið on April 12 that the price of their product in Japan has recently been “unfavorable and is worsening.” The low price, driven by economic circumstances, including global trade wars, doesn’t make whaling commercially viable this summer, he added.
“The market for Icelandic fin whale meat in Japan has been struggling for years — there is both a declining demand and a large stockpile of surplus of imported meat that remains unsold — so a lack of market in Japan is nothing new,” Sharon Livermore, director of marine conservation at U.S.-based advocacy group International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), told Mongabay by email. “It’s clear that killing hundreds of whales a year is an economic and environmental loser.”
Iceland, Japan and Norway are the only three countries that still permit commercial whaling despite a 1986 moratorium by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). From 2019-2021, though, there was no commercial hunting of fin whales in Iceland.
“Given the current economic situation, Hvalur HF sees no other option but to stay docked and wait for better days. The situation will be reassessed next year,” said Loftsson, speaking to Icelandic media.
Surveys suggest that support for commercial whaling in Iceland has dwindled significantly over the last decade. Iceland is one of only three countries that grants commercial whaling licenses, the others being Norway and Japan.
A 2024 poll from Maskína, conducted at the behest of the Iceland Nature Conservation Association, demonstrated that more Icelanders believe whale hunting hurts Iceland’s image abroad than helps it. No whales were hunted in 2023, despite the permit being in place.
Whale-watching is popular among tourists to Iceland and generates more revenue than whale hunting. Around one in five of the 2.2 million tourists who visited Iceland in 2017 took a whale watch trip.
In 2017, the total revenue of whale-watching companies amounted to 3.2 billion Icelandic króna ($26.5 million). Meanwhile, Hvalur’s revenue from whaling activities in 2017 amounted to 1.7 billion króna ($14.1 million).
Contrary to popular belief, whale meat is not a traditional Icelandic dish and local people rarely eat it. A 2018 survey revealed that only 2% of the population regularly purchases whale meat. Most of the minke whale catch is served up in restaurants to tourists. Almost all of the fin whale catch is exported to Japan.
Whaling season cancelled for second consecutive year in Iceland