{"id":623413,"date":"2026-09-13T13:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623413\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T13:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:06:23","slug":"iceland-to-propose-whaling-ban-leaving-norway-and-japan-isolated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623413\/","title":{"rendered":"Iceland to propose whaling ban, leaving Norway and Japan isolated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iceland\u2019s government will submit a bill in \u200bFebruary to ban whaling, a move that would leave Norway<\/a> and Japan<\/a> as the only two countries in the world to continue commercial whaling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whaling in Iceland has \u2060sparked years of protests from animal welfare campaigners and Hollywood celebrities.<\/p>\n

The bill will include \u201ca permanent ban on whaling,\u201d the government, which has a majority in parliament, said on its website late on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In this \u2060year\u2019s hunting season, which runs \u200bfrom \u2060June to around the end of September, 80 fin whales had been caught as of Wednesday, according to \u2060Humane World for Animals, an animal welfare group that tracks \u200bthe \u2060catches. The quota allows \u200c150 fin whales to be killed this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is considerable political and public support for this bill to ban commercial whaling, \u200cand compelling ethical, veterinary, legal and conservation \u200creasons to hope it succeeds,\u201d said Wendy Higgins, a Humane World for Animals spokeswoman.<\/p>\n

Fin whales, the primary target of Iceland\u2019s whaling industry, are classified \u2060by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as vulnerable.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Iceland\u2019s interim government issued a five-year license to its sole remaining whaling company.<\/p>\n

Only Iceland, Norway and Japan have conducted commercial whaling in recent years, according to the International Whaling Commission\u2019s catch list.<\/p>\n

Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993 and Iceland in 2006, \u200cdespite an international moratorium <\/a>that took effect in 1986 \u200bto protect whale populations.<\/p>\n

Japan withdrew from the International \u200cWhaling Commission in 2019 and \u2060resumed commercial whaling in its territorial waters and exclusive \u2060economic zone.<\/p>\n

The moratorium allows Indigenous peoples in certain parts of the world, such \u200cas Greenland and \u200bAlaska, to hunt whales because whale \u200cproducts play a vital role \u200bin their nutritional and cultural lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iceland\u2019s government will submit a bill in \u200bFebruary to ban whaling, a move that would leave Norway and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-623413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623413","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=623413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}