The Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) believes that the killing of many whales in Icelandic waters during last year’s whaling season did not comply with the objectives of Iceland’s Animal Welfare Act. The headline in the Icelandic newspaper, Morgunbladid, reads ‘Whaling is inconsistent with animal welfare objectives’,
In summary:
- 148 whales were killed; 38 had to be shot more than once (5 three times and 4 four times)
- One harpooned whale was followed for 5 hours
- MAST actively supervised the hunting of 58 whales – of these 67% were deemed to die immediately or quickly.
- 24% were shot more than once
- Some whales took up to two hours to die.
- The median time from from being shot to death of those animals which didn’t die ‘quickly’ was 11.5 minutes
Examples of previous coverage of this issue on this blog: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 (here, here, here).
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