Iceland’s controversial decision to allow hunting of 128 endangered whales

THREATS TO WHALES

Whales are important large cetaceans threatened not only by overfishing, but also by plastic pollution, deep-sea mining, maritime transportation or climate change, adds Ojeda, who defends the moratorium imposed thanks to the insistence of environmental movements in the second half of the year. of the 20th century, thanks to which their populations “have recovered but have not reached the state they had before the 1970s.”

Mark Simmonds, OceanCare’s Director of Science, also criticized Iceland’s decision as “unnecessary and unethical” and believes that maintaining it is “simply a mistake” and that the country “missed a golden opportunity to abandon this cruel and archaic practice. .”