24. June 2026

Three lives lost

Iceland’s controversial fin whaling season has begun, with the first three fin whales of the season landed at the whaling station in Hvalfjörður over the past few days. The catcher vessel Hvalur 9 arrived on Tuesday morning at around 4:30 a.m. with two male fin whales secured alongside its port side. Hvalur 8, after spending almost 100 hours at sea, returned yesterday evening with a third fin whale.

Despite having witnessed this procedure countless times before, it remains profoundly distressing. How can such an archaic practice still have a place in 2026?

These three whales are the first animals hunted by Hvalur hf. since the company’s shortened whaling season ended in September 2023. At that time, significant animal welfare concerns led to a temporary suspension of whaling operations. The regulatory framework was subsequently tightened, allowing the hunt to resume only under stricter conditions.

Over the last couple of days, we have resumed our independent monitoring and documentation of Hvalur’s activities, work that we have carried out since 2015.

It is certainly not a pleasant task to point a camera at a slaughterhouse for whales. Nevertheless, we believe this work remains essential. Monitoring and documentation have exposed disturbing aspects of the whaling industry in the past that many people would otherwise never have seen. If we identify potential irregularities or apparent breaches of regulations, it is important that these are brought to public attention.

In the case of the whale brought ashore yesterday, a request has been submitted to the relevant authorities seeking clarification regarding three impact wounds visible across the animal’s body. Given the attention these injuries received from several observers who were not members of staff, it seems likely that something unusual occurred. At this stage, we can only speculate, but we hope to learn more about what this animal endured during its struggle for survival. Judging from our photographs, this was unlikely to have been an instantaneous death, and prolonged suffering appears, regrettably, to have been very likely.

The hunt for fin whales resumed last Friday, and it feels somewhat unreal that we are here again, witnessing these almost daily atrocities. Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, Iceland’s Minister of Industries, has repeatedly stated that a review of the country’s whaling legislation is underway and that a proposal to prohibit commercial whaling altogether is expected to be introduced this autumn. For these three whales, and for those that will follow in the coming weeks, such plans sadly come too late.