The Icelandic government plans to submit a bill to ban whaling in February 2027, leaving Japan and Norway as the only countries in the world that allow commercial whaling, Reuters reports.
Animal rights activists and Hollywood stars have been protesting against whaling in Iceland for years. The country’s majority government announced on its website on the evening of the 9th of September that the bill would completely ban whaling.
During this year’s whaling season, which runs from June to the end of September, 80 whales had been killed in Iceland by the 9th of September. Quotas this year allow for the hunting of 150 whales. Wendy Higgins of Humane World for Animals said the bill to ban commercial whaling had significant political and public support, and the comprehensive ethical, veterinary, legal and conservation rationale gave hope that the law would be passed.
Fin whales, the main target of Iceland’s whaling industry, are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
In 2024, Iceland’s interim government granted the country’s only remaining whaling company a five-year whaling license.
According to the International Whaling Commission, commercial whaling only takes place in Iceland, Norway and Japan. Despite an international moratorium on whale hunting that went into effect in 1986, Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993, and Iceland resumed whaling in 2006.
Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission in 2019 and resumed whaling in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.
The moratorium allows whaling by indigenous peoples in certain parts of the world, such as Greenland and Alaska, because whale products form an important part of their diet and culture.
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