Kristján Loftsson, owner of Iceland’s whaling vessels and whaling company Hvalur HF, has announced that there will be no fin whale hunt this year. The hunt for smaller minke whales, with which he is not involved and which supplies meat exclusively to the local market, is expected to continue as usual.
In an interview with daily newspaper Morgunblaðið, he said that antiquated quality control techniques used to analyse the meat in Japan mean that there are long delays in the meat getting to buyers. He commented that in spite of repeated efforts to solve the problem and speed up the process, with diplomatic approaches to the Japanese authorities by both ministers and ambassadors, the situation remains unchanged and effectively brings the hunt to a close.
He said that if they had known in 2009 when the fin whale hunt was resumed just what the situation was, they would not have gone ahead and sent two whaling vessels to sea after a 20-year hiatus.
The hunt has never been anything other than highly controversial, and there has been intense speculation that Hvalur hf has incurred some very significant losses in its pursuit of commercial whaling. The US government has also indicated several times that economic sanctions could result from a refusal to stop the whale hunt. Hacktivist group Anonyous also targeted Iceland several times, attacking government and other websites in Iceland, and has pledged to continue its cyber attacks until whaling ends.
