Iceland didn't hunt any whales this year – and public appetite for whale meat is fading

One of the most important global conservation events of the past year was something that didn’t happen. For the first time since 2002, Iceland – one of just three countries that still allow commercial whaling – didn’t hunt any whales, even though its government had approved whaling permits in early 2019. Many people may think of whaling as a 19th-century industry in which men threw harpoons at their quarry by hand. But humans are still killing whales today in other ways. Thousands of whales are struck by ships, However, most nations support a commercial whaling ban that the

For years, ecological studies of whales focused on how much fish they ate or krill they consumed, which represented costs to fisheries. Starting around 10 years ago, my colleagues and I took a fresh look at Whales often dive deep to feed, coming to the surface to breathe, rest, digest – and poop. Their nutrient-rich faecal plumes provide nitrogen, iron and phosphorus to algae at the surface, which increases productivity in areas where whales feed. More whales mean more plankton and more fish. Whales also play a role in the carbon cycle. They are the largest creatures on Earth, and when they die their carcasses often sink to the deep sea. These events, known as whale falls, provide habitat for at least a hundred species that depend on the bones and nutrients. They also transfer carbon to the deep ocean, where it remains sequestered for

Whales are economically valuable, but watching them brings in more money than killing them. “Humpbacks are one of the most commercially important marine species in Iceland,” a whale-watching guide told me one morning off the coast of Akureyri. Whale-watching income For years after the international moratorium on whaling was adopted in 1986, only Norway allowed commercial whaling. Japan continued hunting in the Antarctic under the guise of “scientific whaling,” which many whale biologists considered

Iceland also allowed a research hunt in the 1980s, with much of the meat sold to Japan, but stopped whaling under international pressure in the 1990s. It resumed commercial hunting in 2002, with strong domestic support. Iceland was ruled by Norway and then Denmark until 1944. As a result, Icelanders often chafe under external pressure. Many saw foreign protests against whaling as a threat to their national identity, and local media coverage was distinctly pro-whaling.

This view started to shift around 2014, when European governments refused to allow the transport of whale meat harvested by Icelandic whalers through their ports, en route to In May 2019, Hvalur – the whaling business owned by Kristján Loftsson, Iceland’s most vocal and controversial whaler – announced that it wouldn’t hunt fin whales, which are During my year in Iceland, I met for coffee every couple of weeks with Sigursteinn Másson, program leader for the local whale-watching association

“I worked on gay rights in Iceland, which was opposed by the church, and mental health for ten years,” he told me. “They were peanuts compared to the whaling issue.” At first, both companies insisted that they would start whaling again in 2020. But Jónsson’s outfit no longer plans to hunt minkes, and Másson doubts that whaling will continue. “Nobody is encouraging them anymore – or interested,” he told me last summer.

Now trade is getting even tougher. In 2018 Japan announced that it would leave the International Whaling Commission, stop its controversial Antarctic whaling program and Tourist behaviour in Iceland is also changing. For years, tourists would go out whale watching, then order grilled minke in restaurants. After the International Fund for Animal Welfare started targeting whale watchers in 2011 with its “ For many Icelanders, whale meat is an occasional delicacy. Over dinner a few months ago, I met an Icelandic woman who told me she thought the whale was delicious, and she didn’t see why whaling was such a big deal. How many times had she eaten whale? Once a month, once a year? “I’ve had it twice in my life.”

About a third of Icelanders now Although few observers would have predicted it, whaling may end in Iceland not through denial of a permit but from lack of interest. How long until the world’s remaining commercial whalers in Japan and Norway, who face similar shifts in taste and demographics, follow a similar course?