Dame Judi Dench has demanded that Iceland \u201cturn the page\u201d on commercial whaling and become a top destination to view the creatures instead.<\/p>\n
Singer Leona Lewis and comedian Ricky Gervais were among those who joined the actress in signing a letter to Icelandic Industries Minister Hanna Katr\u00edn Fri\u00f0riksd\u00f3ttir about the issue.<\/p>\n
At least 18 fin whales have been killed so far this season, Humane World for Animals said.<\/p>\n
In the letter, organised by the animal charity, the celebrities said they wanted to express their \u201cdeep sadness\u201d at the resumption of commercial whaling.<\/p>\n
They added: \u201cWe stand with the very many people across Iceland who do not want to see this whale slaughter continue, who want to begin a new chapter in Iceland\u2019s relationship with whales, one built on respect, compassion and fealty for nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you recently pledged to introduce a bill to ban commercial whaling in Iceland, the world cheered you on. In doing so, you can turn the page on killing whales for a meat that has virtually no viable market, and instead make Iceland a world leading destination for peaceful, harmonious whale watching tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is understood that one pregnant female and her unborn baby have been killed in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Another is said to have been shot four times with \u201cexploding harpoons\u201d and took 31 minutes to die.<\/p>\n
The celebrities added: \u201cWhen you recently pledged to introduce a bill to ban commercial whaling in Iceland, the world cheered you on. In doing so, you can turn the page on killing whales for a meat that has virtually no viable market, and instead make Iceland a world leading destination for peaceful, harmonious whale watching tourism.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease let these be the last whales to die in Iceland\u2019s hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iceland remains one of only three countries, alongside Norway and Japan, that openly permit commercial whale hunting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dame Judi Dench has demanded that Iceland \u201cturn the page\u201d on commercial whaling and become a top destination…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[231872,231870,246,62,231871,61,60,6882,82,6306,231873],"class_list":["post-547057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-commercial-whaling","tag-dame-judi-dench","tag-environment","tag-iceland","tag-iceland-whaling-ban","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-judi-dench","tag-science","tag-tourism","tag-whale-watching-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}