Japan’s return to commercial whaling in 2019 has left few buyers for Iceland’s meat
Highlights
- Iceland is one of the only countries that still hunts whales commercially, along with Norway and Japan.
- Demand for Icelandic whale meat has decreased dramatically since Japan’s return to commercial whaling in 2019.
- The hunt had also become too expensive after a no-fishing coastal zone was extended, requiring whalers to go even farther offshore.
- In the last full season in 2018, 146 fin whales and six Minke whales were killed in Iceland’s last full-season.
- Only one whale has been killed in the past three years, a Minke whale in 2012, a year before Japan returned to the hunt.
- The two main countries have suspended their whale hunts, and one of them hung up its harpoons in 2020.