Icelandic Company to Stop Shipping Whale

Icelandic shipping company Samskip has decided to halt the shipping of whale products after six containers of fin whale meat were grounded at the harbor in Hamburg in early July and shipped back to Iceland.

Photo: Páll Stefánsson/Iceland Review.

As reported last week, transport company Evergreen Line chose not to ship the meat on to Japan stating that the original booking information indicated that there was frozen fish in the containers and that they didn’t realize until after the ship left Rotterdam that they also included whale meat.

Hamburg customs authorities had earlier requested that the six containers be removed from the company’s ship, the Cosco Pride, while the documents were reviewed. The containers were green-lighted but Evergreen Line chose to leave them behind in Germany. Samskip was subsequently forced to ship the goods back to Iceland.

While Samskip rejects that the containers were falsely labeled, the company has decided to halt the shipping of whale products. The Netherlands recently enforced a ban of the transit of whale products through its ports, making it difficult to ship the products on to Asia. Activists from Greenpeace in Germany recently protested at the harbor in Hamburg.

Despite the uncertainty regarding shipping, whaling in Iceland has continued. A total of 50 fin whales have been caught in the month since the season began, including four animals yesterday, visir.is reports. The meat will be transported to storage in Hafnarfjörður.