Iceland’s only active whaler caught the first fin whale of the season in what may be one of the last hunting campaigns in the country’s history.

“Hvalur 9” arrived at the processing facility in Hvalfjördur (west coast) this Friday (24) morning with an approximately 20-metre-long marine mammal, also called a fin whale, that had been caught the day before.

The mammal, the second largest animal on the planet after the blue whale, was immediately dissected under the cameras of two Sea Shepherd activists to separate the whale oil from its flesh.

“Every whale that isn’t in the ocean it belongs to and is here is bullshit,” said Imogen Sawyer, an activist for this marine conservation organization.

Two ships of the island’s last whaler, “Hvalur 8” (“whale” in Icelandic) and “Hvalur 9”, left Reykjavik on Wednesday after being stranded in port for three years.

According to Kristján Loftsson, owner of Hvalur, this long cut is due to a dispute between Icelandic authorities over the issuance of an operating license for the processing plants.

Authorities reject this version, implying that the absence of licenses does not hinder fishing.

So far, the halt has been about the return of commercial hunting in Japan, the main target of marine mammals, as well as complications from covid-19.

Iceland adopted a quota of 209 whale catches this year.

Despite a moratorium passed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986 and repeated criticism from animal advocates, Iceland, along with Norway and Japan, is the only country in the world to allow commercial whaling.