Iceland violates the law to ban whale hunting

On October 23 Iceland broke the international ban on whale fishing for 21 years after killing a fin whale, an endangered animal in the list of the Patriarch. World Nature Preservation.

Iceland says fin whales are abundant in their waters, so hunting does not affect this species population (Photo: BBC)

The whale was hunted by Hvalur 9 whale hunters off Iceland. Television images showed that this 20 m long fish was then brought to shore.

This action follows Iceland's statement last week that it plans to restore commercial whaling for commercial purposes.

Norway is the only country that allows whale trade, Japan says it only hunts whales for scientific research purposes.

The International Whale Commission (IWC) has banned the sale of whales since 1985. Iceland was a member of IWC in 2002. However, on October 17, the Icelandic Fisheries Department announced plans to hunt fish. his new elephant. Accordingly, each year the whaling boats will catch 9 fin whales and 30 gray back whales. The ministry also added that hunting would be within allowed limits.

Fin whale is a species in the list of endangered animals of the World Conservation Organization, however, according to Iceland, the number of these species in their country is high enough to allow hunting.

Iceland's announcement made angry conservation groups and countries to fight whales, some argued that this was an act of challenging the law. The action also affected Iceland's tourism industry when many travel companies said they received many e-mail announcing they would not go to Iceland if the country continued to hunt whales.

The European Commission (EC) has called on Iceland to reconsider its decision.

WALL VY