On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondentsGet a weekly dispatch from our international correspondentsGet a weekly international news dispatchAnti-whaling activists are targeting UK holidaymakers to Iceland, who they say are responsible for an industry that kills hundreds of the animals each year.British guests in Icelandic hotels and visitors to tourist information centres across the country are being faced with information warning them they have been misled over whale meat, which is marketed as a delicacy.Iceland has issued permits to kill up to 2,130 whales in Iceland between now and 2029, comprising 209 endangered fin whales and 217 minke whales each year. open image in galleryA ship transports a 20-metre fin whale to a ‘processing plant’ (AFP via Getty Images)It’s a rise on a decade ago. In 2015, 184 whales were killed; in 2016, 46 minkes were killed, and 17 more in 2017. In 2018, 146 fin whales including a dozen pregnant whales and at least two rare blue/fin whale hybrids were captured. A plan announced in 2019 to kill more than 2,000 whales over five years to 2023 was partially scuppered by the Covid pandemic but remained at a lower level.Most Icelanders do not eat whale meat, and most of it is consumed by the 2.3 million foreign tourists who visit each year.So campaigners say calling it a traditional delicacy is misleading, and that without US and UK travellers, Iceland’s whaling industry would fold. British holidaymakers to the country are the second-largest number after Americans, and more than 240,000 visited last year. One estimate put the value of British tourism to Iceland at more than £300m. open image in galleryTourists are invited to sign ‘pledge cards’ (Hvalavinir Whale friends)Anti-whaling organisation Hvalavinir has placed “pledge cards” in hotels and tourist bureaux, as well as creating an online pledge that visitors can sign to boycott the meat. The cards, with the slogan #fortheloveoficeland, say the meat is not part of Icelandic culture and urges people to refuse it or even go to restaurants serving it.Whale meat is often served in restaurants popular with tourists and on cruise ships, where it might be in buffets or barbecues. Restaurant menus sometimes fail to specify they contain whale meat, instead describing them as “local specialties” or “a taste of Iceland”. The whaling industry also tries to market the meat to tourists as novelty products, such as whale-flavoured beer or pickled blubber.Claire Bass, of Humane World for Animals UK, which is part of the campaign, said: “If visiting tourists stopped eating whale meat, the market would virtually disappear. “By contrast, responsible whale watching in Iceland generates millions of króna each year but is directly jeopardised by continued whale-hunting. “The whale-consumption choices of tourists can help to either kill whales or save them.”open image in galleryThe whale-watching industry ‘is more valuable than hunting’ (Getty Images/iStockphoto)Commercial whaling was banned in 1986, but Iceland, Japan and Norway defy the ban.Three years ago, critics said whales caught off Iceland died in agony after being harpooned with grenades that failed to explode inside them.Whalers used the weapons on an “alarming” number of fin whales, dragging them ashore as they slowly succumbed to their wounds.In 2023, a damning report by the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority concluded that commercial whaling was inconsistent with animal-welfare law. It found nearly half (41 per cent) of whales took on average 11.5 minutes to die, while some took up to two hours. More than one quarter were harpooned twice before dying, and most whales killed (73 per cent) were female.Whales are vital in helping mitigate the climate crisis by storing carbon in their bodies and transporting nutrients to the surface. Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Cambridge University, told The Independent the carbon embodied in a single blue whale was “far, far greater” than the market value of its meat and oil.Six years ago, an IMF expert calculated the environmental benefits of each whale were worth about $2m (£1.47m) over its lifetime. And the entire global population of great whales could be worth up to a trillion dollars, it was estimated. Alick Simmons, former UK government deputy chief vet, told the Whale and Dolphin Conservation organisation: “Any method of killing that requires animals to be shot twice at least 20 per cent of the time or when the time to death is several minutes is unacceptable. These outcomes would be unacceptable in any other killing method including in a slaughterhouse.”Iceland’s only remaining whaling company, Hvalur hf, did not respond to requests to comment.The Visit Iceland tourist board referred enquiries to the ministry for foreign affairs, but no response was received before publication.
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British tourists in Iceland accused of ‘keeping whale meat industry alive’
