Hvalur kills more than 50 fin whales as Reykjavik prepares a ban bill

Hvalur hf. has killed more than 50 fin whales off Iceland this summer, the first commercial catch since 2023. Le Monde reported the tally on 8 September from the station at the head of Hvalfjordur, the fjord north of Reykjavik where carcasses are hauled up a ramp and butchered in the open. The Directorate of Fisheries had counted 17 animals by 19 July. The Captain Paul Watson Foundation put the mid-summer figure nearer 30. By early September the station's own work had pushed the number past 50.

The Marine and Freshwater Research Institute advised a maximum of 150 fin whales and 168 minke whales for the 2026 season. Hvalur holds a five-year licence issued in December 2024. The company sat out 2024 and 2025 because it said it had no market. Japan has been the historic buyer of Icelandic fin whale meat. When that channel closed, the boats stayed tied. This June they went out again. Hvalur 9 took the first two animals on the night of 21-22 June. Hvalur 8 sailed with it.

Fin whales are the second-largest animals on the planet. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the species as vulnerable. The International Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial hunting has been in force since 1986. Iceland, Norway and Japan are the three countries that still take whales for sale. Hvalur, founded in 1947 by Loftsson's father and a partner, has killed 1,017 fin whales since it returned to the hunt in 2009. More than 1,900 fin and minke whales have been taken in Icelandic waters since the moratorium.

Public opinion inside Iceland has moved against the work. An Iceland Review citation of a recent survey put opponents at 41 percent and supporters at 33 percent. Among people aged 18 to 29, support fell to 21 percent. Whale watching now brings about 350,000 visitors a year to a country of 400,000. Tourism is 8.8 percent of GDP. This summer the watching boats avoided Hvalfjordur while the station worked.

Hanna Katrin Fridriksson, the minister of industries, has said she will present a bill this winter to end the hunt. "I would like to see a significant reduction in whaling. My vision is that we stop this hunting," she told Visir. Kristjan Loftsson, 83, answered on television that a minister of industry tabling a law to close an industry might belong in a record book. The political calendar is tight. Icelanders voted on 29 August against restarting accession talks with the European Union. Some opponents of the hunt argued that Loftsson resumed killing in order to put the EU file, and Brussels' hostility to commercial whaling, back into the campaign. That claim is speculation. The catch itself is not.

Explosive harpoons remain the method. Animal-welfare groups have published time-to-death figures from earlier seasons that the company disputes. The legal fact is simpler. The licence is valid. The minister has announced a bill she has not yet tabled. Until the Althingi votes, Hvalur can keep filling the 150-animal advice. Fifty-plus animals in one summer, after two empty years, is the number that forced the argument back onto the front pages in Reykjavik this week.

The station at the end of the fjord is the last commercial whaling plant in Iceland. If the winter bill passes, it closes. If the bill fails or is watered down, the 2027 season will open with the same two ships and the same quota advice. Between those outcomes sits a species listed as vulnerable, a tourist industry that sells live whales, and an 83-year-old owner who has outlasted every previous attempt to shut him down.