Iceland to end whaling by 2024
© RIA Novosti, Vera Kostamo

Iceland to end whaling by 2024

Iceland’s Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture, Svandis Svavarsdottir, announced the country’s plans to end the slaughter of whales by 2024. Over the last three years, only one whale was killed in the country.

“There are few justifications to authorize the whale hunt beyond 2024. There is little proof that there is any economic advantage to this activity,” Svavarsdottir noted in an interview for an Icelandic newspaper.

From 2019 through 2023, Iceland is allowing the killing of 209 fin whales (the second largest animal in the world after the blue whale) and 217 minke whales. However, over the past three years two main license holders have not been active, and one of them has stopped hunting. The demand for Iceland’s whale meat dropped significantly after Japan resumed commercial whaling in 2019.