Blue Whale Hunting Is Denounced
A group of ecologists denounces the hunt for the blue whale. A specimen of this species was found killed on an Icelandic ship.
Whaling was eradicated by the first ecological movements in the late 20th century, which sought to protect these animals.
However, hunting for blue whales is still fashionable in some countries .
Why is blue whale hunting prohibited?
The perpetrators of this atrocity are Iceland’s only whalers company known as Kristján Loftsson. The blue whale is an endangered species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and hunting it is illegal.
Additionally, this Icelandic company is only allowed to catch one species of whale known as the fin whale, one of the Mediterranean’s cetaceans, so blue whale hunting is a genuine attack on marine life.
In ancient times there were about 300,000 specimens in Antarctica, while today there are about 2,000.
The largest whale hunt in the world is illegal
The whaling company Kristján Loftsson defended itself by insinuating that the species captured is not a pure blue whale, but a hybrid crossed with a common and a blue whale.
Whale hybrids are uncommon; according to experts only 5 specimens have been recorded in the last 40 years in the waters of Northern Europe.
What’s more, the widespread images show what experts believe to be a young male blue whale, making it the world’s first largest whale caught in nearly half a century.
Whaling is still legal in many countries
The ban on whaling came in 1986, although many countries have managed to maintain their whalers and dolphin hunters. Basque whalers were among the most prolific during the Middle Ages.
Among them, Japan claimed to hunt whales for scientific purposes to defend itself. However, the Japanese are the largest consumers of cetacean meat and it has been proven that they do this for commercial purposes.
In some Nordic countries, such as Norway and Iceland, whaling continues to be hiding behind legal loopholes. In Iceland, for example, there were permits to hunt only a few species of whales, so catching the blue whale violates this legislation.
In the Nordic countries they continue to hunt whales and then sell them in Asia, so one of the objectives of the conservative entities is to be able to stop these populations from consuming the meat of these cetaceans.
ADN will decide what will happen with the blue whale hunt in Iceland
Given the rarity of the hybrids and the state of the animal’s body, the identification of this blue whale will be carried out by the ADN, which will decide whether it can be sold in Asia.
On the contrary, if it is a blue whale specimen, not only will it not be able to be sold, but penalties will be imposed on these whalers.
This could ban whaling, leaving this country with no company doing this practice.
