Captain Paul Watson Foundation Fights To Stop The Killing Of Endangered Fin Whales In Iceland

Captain Paul Watson Foundation is launching Operation Ice Storm from Albert Dock in Yorkshire to directly oppose Iceland’s last whaling company, Hvalur hf. Paul Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace and founder of Sea Shepherd has a history of intervening in Icelandic whaling operations. In 1986 members of his group successfully reduced the whaling fleet of Hvalur hf by half.

“The time is up for the world’s most notorious hunter of whales, Kristján Loftsson,” said Captain Paul Watson, who will lead this summer’s anti-whaling campaign on his flagship vessel the John Paul DeJoria, a 72-meter former Scottish Fisheries Protection Ship.

Kristjan Loftsson operates Hvalur hf at a loss. The whaler’s business empire includes large shareholdings in banks and IT companies and the magnate uses his wealth to hunt up to 209 fin whales each season. Fin whales are protected under international conservation law and listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Despite widespread opposition from the Icelandic public (a recent poll suggests over 51% of Icelanders oppose whaling) and despite Iceland’s Fisheries Minister temporarily revoking Hvalur hf’s whaling license last summer, Iceland’s whaling boss continues to leverage his political influence in pursuit of resuming whaling operations. Loftsson plans to deploy two ships, armed with explosive harpoons – Hvalur 8 and Hvalur 9 – in June.

“Our volunteer crew members are making necessary preparations to depart UK in June. From our standpoint, Loftsson is planning to hunt whales this summer and we will be ready,” said Captain Locky MacLean, who sailed the John Paul DeJoria to the coast of Iceland last summer to intercept Hvalur’s vessels when the licenses were suspended.

In 2023, the US-based Captain Paul Watson Foundation and its UK arm, CPWF UK, worked in conjunction on land and at sea on “Operation Paiakan” during which a temporary pause on whaling permits was issued by Iceland’s Fisheries Minister, Svandis Svavarsdottir, as the John Paul DeJoria lay wait on the West coast of Iceland, ready for a confrontation to stop Hvalur hf’s vessels from hunting fin whales. This summer, CPWF’s flagship will set sail in mid-June from Hull, UK, to block Loftsson’s harpoon ships if permits are issued.

CPWF UK’s Rob Read, who has been running a ground operation in Iceland each summer for several years, and documenting the whale processing factory in Hvalfjörður since 2018, states “Whaling is the calculated, intentional, cruel killing of one of the planet’s most intelligent marine mammals, whales are a key species proven to be critical not only to saving the oceans but ultimately all life on Earth.”

Last May, Iceland’s Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) alleged Hvalur hf was in violation of Iceland’s animal welfare laws. They cited instances of multiple fin whales failing to die instantaneously during the hunt, and a median time-to-death of 11.5 minutes. Iceland, alongside Japan and Norway, persists as one of the final nations to engage in commercial whaling, defying the global moratorium imposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986.