“The great auk will always hold a place in my heart,” Dr Jessica Thomas says.The Swansea-based scientist spent years piecing together an ancient DNA puzzle that suggests hunting by humans caused this giant seabird’s demise. Dr Thomas studied bone and tissue samples from 41 museum specimens during a PhD at both Bangor and Copenhagen University.The […]
Tag: iceland
Norway Now Kills More Whales Than Japan And Iceland Combined
Norway is now the world’s leading whaling nation, killing more whales in the past two years than Japan and Iceland combined. A new report released today calls on the international community to respond to Norway’s systematic efforts to weaken management rules and improve market conditions for its whalers. Frozen in Time: How Modern Norway Clings […]
Petition: Stop Organized Puffin Hunting in Iceland
Puffins are beautiful seabirds with bright, gorgeous colors. They’re lovingly called ‘clowns of the sea’ or ‘sea parrots’ because of their colors. Anyone would want to see a puffin given the chance, and some people do. Norway, the Faroe Islands, the US, and Canada offer puffin viewing tours for people to have the chance to […]
The weird magic of eiderdown – the Long Read
In Ísafjörður, the capital of Iceland’s remote Westfjords region, a Lutheran pastor compared eiderdown to cocaine. “I sometimes think that we are like the coca farmers in Colombia,” he said. “We [the down harvesters] get a fraction of the price when the product hits the streets of Tokyo. This is the finest down in the […]
POLL: Should Iceland be sanctioned for approving the killing of hundreds of whales?
Iceland’s being condemned for recently approving the killing of hundreds whales over the next five years. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986, but like Japan, Iceland continued to use the scientific whaling loophole. After leaving the IWC in the 1990s in protest and returning in 2002, Iceland resumed scientific whaling in […]
Orca ‘apocalypse’: half of killer whales doomed to die from pollution
At least half of the world’s killer whale populations are doomed to extinction due to toxic and persistent pollution of the oceans, according to a major new study. Although the poisonous chemicals, PCBs, have been banned for decades, they are still leaking into the seas. They become concentrated up the food chain; as a result, […]
POLL: Would you eat whale or dolphin meat after visiting a marine sanctuary?
Should you eat whale meat? Reports on Iceland’s new retirement home for beluga whales note that, after viewing the animals – rescued from a Shanghai marine park – tourists can then visit a harbourside restaurant where they can dine on whale meat. Last week, Iceland resumed whaling after a three-year hiatus, killing a 20-metre fin […]
POLL: Should Iceland be sanctioned for continuing to slaughter whales?
Iceland’s lone whaling company’s ongoing defiance of an international ban on commercial whaling is outrageous and offence enough as it continues to target endangered fin and minke whales, but now it’s reached a new low after having illegally slaughtered the first blue whale in decades. After a two year break from whaling, Hvalur hf announced […]