Photo: Steffen Trumpf/picture-alliance/dpa/AP/File.
The whaling ships Hvalur 9 and Hvalur 8 in port, August 2019, in Reykjavík. Gradually, Icelanders have been rethinking whether they want to be part of the violent whaling hunt.
Deep, ingrained national behaviors can change. Take, for example, the acceptance of whaling among Icelanders. Will the big whaling countries’ populations be next?
Mark Sappenfield writes for the Christian Science Monitor, “For more than 40 years, Kristján Loftsson has fought a battle that most outside Iceland want him to lose. This week, he might have gotten his toughest foe yet: Iceland itself.
“Mr. Loftsson owns Hvalur hf., Iceland’s lone whaling company, and for much of the past few decades, its greatest success has been survival. Through moratoriums, protests, sabotage, and even the collapse of the market for Icelandic whale meat, Mr. Loftsson has endured. Iceland remains one of three nations with commercial whaling, along with Norway and Japan.
“[In September], however, Iceland’s ruling coalition proposed a potential revision of whaling laws that could lead to a ban. It comes at the end of a summer with a significant sprinkling of drama. Workers at Hvalur controversially played the national anthem as they butchered one whale, and the Icelandic coast guard dramatically raided an anti-whaling vessel at sea.
“It points to a nation hanging in the balance.
In 2003, 75% of Icelanders supported whaling. This year, 33% do, with 41% against and 26% neutral or indifferent.
“The ambivalence shows the uncertain prospects for the legislative efforts to ban whaling. But it also shows that the tides of public opinion in Iceland are changing. This summer’s pitched battles for public opinion were only the beginning.
“Sitting in a Reykjavík café, Mr. Loftsson does not give the appearance of a man against the world. He chats easily about growing up in the company his father founded. By age 13, he was a mess boy, cleaning the floors. Two years later, he was a deckhand, climbing into the crow’s nest. …
“He notes that fin whales are not endangered in the North Atlantic, and he dismisses scientific findings that show whales to be highly intelligent, social animals. ‘It’s just something they make up,’ he says, speaking of the opposition.
“For years, Mr. Loftsson’s greatest ally has arguably been Iceland’s sense of independence. The nation has never been afraid to go its own way, and for many Icelanders, whaling has been a token of that defiance. …
“But for others, the playing of the national anthem amid cries of ‘Áfram Ísland’ (‘Forward, Iceland!’) went too far. …
“The broader shifts in support for whaling have been coming for years. Videos of whale kills made public in 2023 shocked many Icelanders – showing the brutality of the hunt, which can involve multiple explosive harpoons, sometimes over an hour or more.
“ ‘Everyone could see how horrible the hunting is,’ says Valgerður Árnadóttir, co-founder of Hvalavinir, an Icelandic organization that seeks to protect whales. ‘It is impossible to hunt in a humane way.’
“Shannon Mann’s hope was to stop this year’s hunt altogether. She was on the ship Bandero this July as part of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation’s worldwide efforts to stop whaling. Instead, she ended up being detained and deported.
“For several weeks of cat and mouse, the Bandero tried to find either of Hvalur’s two ships to interfere with the hunt, but the Icelandic coast guard helped keep their whereabouts secret.
“At last, running low on supplies, the Bandero tracked one Hvalur ship into Iceland’s territorial waters. Mr. Loftsson claims the Bandero tried to sink the Hvalur vessel by ramming it. Ms. Mann disagrees, saying the Bandero never came within two nautical miles. ‘No one was ever at risk. We’re not out to hurt anyone.’
“Within hours, the Icelandic coast guard had helicoptered a team onto a boat in the area and boarded the Bandero. The ship remains in Iceland, docked in the fishing town of Akranes north of Reykjavík, where Nick Bohnet has taken over and is trying to persuade Icelandic authorities to let the Bandero leave. “
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