Iceland is one of the last countries in the world to hunt whales. There are only a handful of countries that still hunt whales, as whale hunting was internationally banned in 1986.
The whale hunting ban was agreed upon by many different countries across the world through the International Whaling Commission. Only a handful of countries are still hunting whales today, they are Norway, Japan and Iceland. The latter we will get back to in a moment.
Things however, seem to be changing in Iceland.
Things are changing in Iceland because, in 2019, Iceland didn't hunt any whales. This hasn't been the first time that Iceland has stopped hunting whales, they also didn't hunt any in 2002.
Iceland didn't just stop hunting whales then, they also rejoined the whaling commission (the commission that helped ban whaling internationally in the 1980s).
Iceland began whaling again just four years later, in 2006. Iceland has had a history of stopping and then restarting whaling again. Therefore, perhaps we should be cautiously optimistic that Iceland is not hunting whales again this year.
There are reports that Iceland has killed its last whale ever and may not resuming whaling again, but since they have said similar things in the past and then went back to whaling, we shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves yet in celebrating Iceland's absence in whaling over the last two years.
But, at the same time, there are also reasons to be hopeful that this is Iceland's last time hunting these beautiful animals. Icelanders don't seem to eat whale meat, as the whale meat has been shipped off to Japan in the past. And, another reason to be hopeful that this is the end of whaling in Iceland is because whale watching in Iceland is increasing and becoming profitable to the Iceland economy - whale watching has doubled in Iceland during the last decade.
There are signs that there could be a more positive future for whales in Iceland, one were whales are watched in the wild and admired for their beauty, rather than being slaughtered.
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