On Dec. 6, Iceland’s caretaker government announced it had issued five-year licenses to hunt fin and minke whales in Icelandic waters. It granted the fin whale hunting license to Hvalur hf., the country’s only remaining fin-whaling company, run by billionaire Kristján Loftsson, and the minke-hunting permit to a ship owned by Tjaldtangi ehf., a whaling company that was previously licensed to hunt minke whales. The licenses were issued by Iceland’s caretaker prime minister, who also serves as the minister of food, agriculture and fisheries, Bjarni Benediktsson. They allow the companies to hunt 209 fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) and 217 minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) each year between 2025 and 2029. The government says this quota is based on population assessments by the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Council, an international body for cooperation on the conservation, management and study of whales, dolphins and seals in the region. In 2015, the council estimated that around 41,000 fin whales inhabited the waters around Iceland and Eastern Greenland, and their numbers were increasing. With surveys from 2014 to 2019, the council estimated that around 50,000 minkes lived in an overlapping but smaller area, with their numbers around Iceland’s coastal areas having declined compared to earlier years. The whaleboat Hvalur 8, photographed in 2009. Its owner, Hvalur hf., Iceland’s only remaining fin-whaling company, has been issued a five-year license for fin whaling until 2029. Image courtesy of Dagur Brynjólfsson via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). “The management of the exploitation of living marine resources in Iceland is…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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