One of the last three whaling countries takes steps toward a ban

For more than 40 years, Kristján Loftsson has fought a battle that most outside Iceland want him to lose. This week, he might have gotten his toughest foe yet: Iceland itself.Mr. Loftsson owns Hvalur hf., Iceland’s lone whaling company, and for much of the past few decades, its greatest success has been survival. Through moratoriums, protests, sabotage, and even the collapse of the market for Icelandic whale meat, Mr. Loftsson has endured. Iceland remains one of three nations with commercial whaling, along with Norway and Japan.On Thursday, however, Iceland’s ruling coalition proposed a potential revision of whaling laws that could lead to a ban. It comes at the end of a summer with a significant sprinkling of drama. Workers at Hvalur controversially played the national anthem as they butchered one whale, and the Icelandic coast guard dramatically raided an anti-whaling vessel at sea. Why We Wrote This Iceland is one of only three nations to still allow the hunting of whales. It’s traditionally been supported by the population, but public opinion has shifted in the last few decades. Now the ruling coalition has announced plans to potentially revise its whaling laws, which could lead to a ban. It points to a nation hanging in the balance. In 2003, 75% of Icelanders supported whaling. This year, 33% do, with 41% against and 26% neutral or indifferent. The ambivalence shows the uncertain prospects for the legislative efforts to ban whaling. But it also shows that the tides of public opinion in Iceland are changing. This summer’s pitched battles for public opinion were only the beginning.Sitting in a Reykjavík café, Mr. Loftsson does not give the appearance of a man against the world. He chats easily about growing up in the company his father founded. By age 13, he was a mess boy, cleaning the floors. Two years later, he was a deckhand, climbing into the crow’s nest.It was Iceland’s rite of summer. “Everyone was working in fishing vessels and trawlers,” says Mr. Loftsson. Mark Sappenfield/The Christian Science Monitor Kristján Loftsson, owner of Hvalur hf., Iceland’s only whaling company, sits in a café in Reykjavik, Aug. 26, 2026. He has run the company since 1974. This is the Iceland he knows, and he sees no reason to give it up. He has no intention to. “If you have a healthy stock [of whales], why not utilize it the way you do with fishing?” he says.He notes that fin whales are not endangered in the North Atlantic, and he dismisses scientific findings that show whales to be highly intelligent, social animals. “It’s just something they make up,” he says, speaking of the opposition.For years, Mr. Loftsson’s greatest ally has arguably been Iceland’s sense of independence. The nation has never been afraid to go its own way, and for many Icelanders, whaling has been a token of that defiance.“If I go to a restaurant, people come up to me and say, ‘Carry on,’” Mr. Loftsson says.But for others, the playing of the national anthem amid cries of “Áfram Ísland” (“Forward, Iceland!”) went too far. Iceland’s minister of industries admonished the workers to “behave like adults.”The broader shifts in support for whaling have been coming for years. Videos of whale kills made public in 2023 shocked many Icelanders – showing the brutality of the hunt, which can involve multiple explosive harpoons, sometimes over an hour or more.“Everyone could see how horrible the hunting is,” says Valgerður Árnadóttir, co-founder of Hvalavinir, an Icelandic organization that seeks to protect whales. “It is impossible to hunt in a humane way.”Shannon Mann’s hope was to stop this year’s hunt altogether. She was on the ship Bandero this July as part of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation’s worldwide efforts to stop whaling. Instead, she ended up being detained and deported. Mark Sappenfield/The Christian Science Monitor Nick Bohnet of the anti-whaling Captain Paul Watson Foundation stands on the bridge of the Bandero in Akranes, Iceland, Aug. 28, 2026. The Bandero was involved in a dramatic encounter with a whaling vessel at sea in July. For several weeks of cat and mouse, the Bandero tried to find either of Hvalur’s two ships to interfere with the hunt, but the Icelandic coast guard helped keep their whereabouts secret.At last, running low on supplies, the Bandero tracked one Hvalur ship into Iceland’s territorial waters. Mr. Loftsson claims the Bandero tried to sink the Hvalur vessel by ramming it. Ms. Mann disagrees, saying the Bandero never came within two nautical miles. “No one was ever at risk. We’re not out to hurt anyone.”Within hours, the Icelandic coast guard had helicoptered a team onto a boat in the area and boarded the Bandero. The ship remains in Iceland, docked in the fishing town of Akranes north of Reykjavík, where Nick Bohnet has taken over and is trying to persuade Icelandic authorities to let the Bandero leave.On a late August day, he’s just trying to figure out who might have stolen the Captain Paul Watson flag from onboard overnight. When the ship arrived, he worried he might face a backlash from locals. Hvalur’s processing plant is not far away.But it’s been quiet aside from a few gawkers who’ve come to see the ship that made all the fuss. One, a woman who declines to give her name, says she supports whaling. “We should be allowed to do what we are doing.”Nearby, Almar Johanesson is walking his dog. He says he worked at the Hvalur facility for several summers many years ago. For him, it was money, nothing else. Whaling? “It’s useless and stupid.”