Iceland plans to end all whaling from 2024, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Svandis Svavarsdottir said in a column in the Morgunbladid newspaper on Friday.

“There are few justifications to authorize the whale hunt beyond 2024,” the minister said, adding that, as things stand, it is highly likely that the practice will be banned when the current quotas end.

Whaling, which was re-authorized for commercial purposes in 2006, is becoming less economically justifiable, with only one whale killed in the past three years.

“There can be several reasons for this, but perhaps the simple explanation is that there have been sustained losses from this type of fishing,” she said.

Demand for whale meat from Iceland has dropped massively since Japan re-authorized whaling in 2019 after it withdrew from the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Whalers in Iceland have also been required to go further afield to hunt the creatures after a no-fishing coastal zone was extended.

Iceland-Whale hit by exploding projectiles bleeds to death slowly and painfully – That’s how cruel whaling is

Social distancing due to the coronavirus has also rendered Iceland’s whale meat processing plants inoperable.

Amid widespread condemnation of the industry, Iceland is one of the few nations, along with Norway and Japan, that still allows commercial whale hunts.

2018 was the last full whaling season, with 146 fin whales and six minke whales killed.

https://www.rt.com/news/548371-iceland-whale-hunt-ban/

And I mean..Those responsible in the Icelandic government should have come to this good decision much earlier, because the demand for whale meat has fallen sharply.

There is absolutely no justification for getting involved in this incredibly cruel industry.
Iceland’s government generally allows minke whales to be caught as a sideline for fishermen, but it also gives the monopoly on the killing of the world’s second largest species, the fin whale, to an one alone millionaire, Kristján Loftsson.

No other country hunts this endangered species, no other country has exported such mountains of whale meat in the last 20 years as the northern European island state.
Iceland used to be one of the most active whaling countries.

Thousands of blue, fin and humpback whales died in Icelandic waters from the early 20th century to 1989. The small country benefited primarily from exports of whale products to Japan.

Luckily the harpoons have been dormant since 2019, the fishing fleet has been in port ever since and the chances of ending this massacre forever and ever are good; we only hope that Minister Svandis Svavarsdottir sticks to his sensible decision.

Like Japanese whaling, whaling in Iceland was just a bloody massacre, benefiting very few and harming very many.
First of all the animals.

“Scientific research” as a hunting ground for whaling has always been a cynical joke.
It’s about jobs and subsidies.
But developments in Iceland suggest the last remaining whalers have gone out of business

What the Icelandic government has done to these animals up until now has been a moral bankruptcy.
High time to abolish that

My best regards to all, Venus