A few months ago I put a date in my calendar where I wrote 'Iceland Ends Whaling'. It was my way of trying to manifest something (I've read a lot about the power of manifesting and thought I'd give it a crack).
I was in Reykjavik in June 2023 when Iceland suspended the hunt due to breaches of animal welfare law, and I shook fisheries minister Svandís Svavarsdóttir’s hand, thinking something had genuinely changed. But a month later the suspension was lifted, and the ships went back out and killed 25 whales (including an unborn calf) before the season ended.
On Sunday, ships Hvalur 8 and Hvalur 9 returned to Reykjavik harbour, ending Iceland’s 2026 fin whaling season, where 93 fin whales were killed in 94 days. The guns, harpoons and explosives have been taken off the ships, packed away for the winter, as they are each year, ready to be unpacked at the start of the next whaling season.
However, that season might not come, as the Icelandic government is preparing new whaling legislation, due to be introduced in February 2027, and the minister responsible has said it will contain a provision to ban whaling.
Hvalur still has a licence that would otherwise allow the hunt to continue through 2029, and Kristján Loftsson, comic book villain and owner of Hvalur, Iceland's only fin whaling company, has made it very clear that he does not intend to quietly accept a ban.
There is now a very real possibility, though, that among the 93 killed this summer was the last fin whale Iceland will ever kill commercially. For years I have watched people in Iceland fight this hunt. Scientists documenting what happens to whales after they are struck, Icelanders protesting, campaigners standing above the whaling station photographing bodies and brave activists climbing the masts.
I have also watched those same ships leave harbour time and time again, which is why I'm not quite ready to call this the end.
The date I chose in the calendar was Friday October the 23rd, so my manifestations aren't going to work this time, I don't think. But, I look forward to seeing what unfolds in the new year, and I hope that we finally get there.
No one was holding up a banner at the harbour this week saying WHALING IS OVER. After years of fighting for the end of whaling in Iceland, it might just be that a ship came quietly into the harbour, the engine was switched off, the harpoons were carried ashore, and that was that.
I really hope that is what's just happened.
We live in hope that we start to care for our animals rather than kill them. In particular our dwindling marine life.