Iceland plans to resume whale hunting this summer

Icelandic commercial whaling company Hvalur hf. plans to resume whale hunting this summer, following a two-year pause in commercial operations.

In 2024, the Icelandic government issued the company a five-year license allowing it to catch up to 209 fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) annually. However, Hvalur hf. didn’t hunt any whales in 2024 or 2025.

Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute advised that no more than 150 should be caught in 2026, a 28% reduction from previous catch recommendations.

The IUCN Red List classifies fin whales as vulnerable to extinction. The species is the second-largest animal on Earth, after blue whales (B. musculus). Partly because they are so large, fin whales are “slow to mature, with low reproductive rates, which means populations recover slowly from any pressure,” Luke McMillan, head of hunting and captivity with the U.S.-based NGO Whale and Dolphin Conservation, told Mongabay by email.

Following the 1982 International Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial whaling, most countries discontinued the practice. Just Iceland, Japan and Norway still allow it. However, Iceland Minister of Industries Hanna Katrín Friðriksson has reportedly said commercial whaling is not in the public interest and that legislation to end the practice will be introduced in the fall, after the 2026 whaling season.

Animal welfare concerns remain a central question. A 2023 report from the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority found more than 40% of whales did not die immediately after being struck by harpoons, with a median of 11.5 minutes before death. In one case, a whale took a full two hours to die after being struck.

McMillan said he doesn’t believe whale hunting can be done in a way that guarantees humane treatment. “At sea, you’re firing from a moving ship at a moving target, in weather you can’t control, making consistent humane killing impossible,” he said.

However, Hvalur hf. CEO Kristján Loftsson has previous defended whaling in purely utilitarian terms by reportedly saying, “Whales are just another fish for me, an abundant marine resource, nothing else.” Whales are not fish, they’re marine mammals.

McMillan told Mongabay that fewer than 2% of Icelanders report regularly eating whale meat. Japanese demand, historically the main market for fin whale meat, has declined by roughly 99% in fiscal year 2023-24 compared with the previous year.

In 2025, Loftsson said the Japanese market was unfavorable, “making the price of our products so low that it is not justifiable to fish.”

“The economic case for whaling has effectively collapsed,” McMillan said. “What remains is a political and legal question about whether to formalise that with legislation. The question for the 2026 season is whether any fin whales will be killed before that legislation arrives.”

Mongabay requested a comment from Hvalur hf. and Iceland’s Ministry of Industries but did not receive a response from either at the time of publishing this article.

Banner image: A rare blue whale-fin whale hybrid killed by Hvalur in 2018. Image courtesy of Hard to Port.