(Adnkronos) – Iceland will present a bill in February 2027 that could permanently ban whaling in its waters, a decision that would leave Norway and Japan as the only two countries to allow commercial whaling. Whaling in Iceland has been the subject of intense scrutiny since a government-commissioned report was published in 2023, which found that harpooned whales took two hours to die. The report led to a temporary suspension of whaling in the same year.
The bill, announced on the Icelandic government’s website, follows statements made earlier this year by Iceland’s Minister of Industry, Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, who had called for changes to whaling laws, deeming them obsolete, and expressed her support for an end to whaling. Wendy Higgins, from Humane World for Animals (Hwa), an animal welfare organization, stated that the bill represents a “significant milestone” in efforts to end this practice. “This bill to ban commercial whaling enjoys considerable political and public support, and there are valid ethical, veterinary, legal, and conservation reasons to hope it will pass,” Higgins said.
“Every whale killed by an explosive harpoon in Icelandic waters – she added – represents a tragic loss of life, needlessly sacrificed for an industry that serves no purpose. A law to stop this slaughter cannot come soon enough.” According to Hwa, from the beginning of the year until September 8, 80 fin whales were caught in Icelandic waters. The hunting season runs from June to the end of September, and the Icelandic quota is 150 specimens. Fin whales are the second largest animals on Earth, after blue whales, and are classified as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, despite decades of recovery after the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium.
