Hvalur

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Killed fin whales on the port side of the Icelandic whaler Hvalur 9 of the Hvalur H / F in the bay of Hvalfjörður 2009

Hvalur hf. is an Icelandic whaling company from the bay of Hvalfjörður . It is the only company in Iceland that hunts the endangered fin whales .

Surname

Hvalur is the Icelandic word for whale , hf. is the abbreviation for Hlutafélag, a stock corporation under Icelandic law.

history

In 1948, the father of today's owner Kristján Loftsson founded the company. Kristján Loftsson joined the family business in 1956 at the age of 13.

From 1978 Greenpeace tried with their ship Rainbow Warrior I , the Icelandic whaling boats from Hvalur hf. disturb. In 1979, Hvalur ships shot harpoons at the protesting conservationists. In the wake of the ongoing protests, Iceland began to escort its whaling fleet with its coast guard .

In November 1986, two Sea Shepherd Conservation Society activists sank the then unmanned whalers Hvalur 6 and Hvalur 7 in Reykjavík harbor and sabotaged the whale processing facilities at Hvalfjörður.

activity

The company owns several whalers . Harpoons with explosive charges on the head are used, which explode in the animal.

In 2014 it was reported by Pro Wildlife that Hvalur hf. holds over 40 percent of the shares in HB Grandi , one of Iceland's largest fishing companies, and that it processes the fin whales caught by Hvalur. HB Grandi is now called Brim .

The company exports the processed fin whale meat primarily to Japan. After the severe earthquake struck Japan in 2011, business collapsed and the company temporarily stopped fishing. However, the catch has continued since June 2013. The fishing season was canceled in 2019 and 2020.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sveinn Birkir Björnsson: Whaler Down ( English ) In: The Reykjavík Grapevine . November 3, 2006. Accessed July 2, 2020.
  2. ↑ German supermarket customers indirectly support Iceland's fin whale hunt . Pro wildlife. July 10, 2014. Accessed July 2, 2020.
  3. ↑ Iceland: HB Grandi is now called Brim . In: fish magazine . October 11, 2019. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
  4. ↑ Whaling season over, 134 fin whales shot . In: Iceland Review . October 2, 2013. Accessed July 2, 2020.
  5. ↑ qu / fab (afp, dpa): Iceland will refrain from whaling in 2019 . In: dw.com . German wave. June 28, 2019. Accessed July 2, 2020.
  6. ↑ No whaling in Iceland in 2020 . International Fund for Animal Welfare. April 28, 2020. Accessed July 2, 2020.