Kristjan Loftsson, Iceland's millionaire whaling king, doesn't really see the difference: "whales are just another fish," he said at a crunch meeting of the International Whaling Commission.
The IWC has gathered in Agadir, Morocco in a bid to end -- or at least suspend -- the trench war between pro- and anti-whaling nations.
As things stand, Iceland, Japan and Norway use legal loopholes to harvest the marine mammals despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling.
A proposal drafted before the meeting would have authorised a reduced hunt by these three countries for a decade while the 88-nation body tries to work out a more durable solution.
But on Wednesday the talks collapsed, which suits Loftsson just fine.
"It is all a waste of time and money," said the 67-year-old, who has been tracking and killing fin whales for more than four decades and is now a member of Iceland's delegation.
"The debate here is all about creating unemployment," he said in an interview.
"Iceland is a small country. If you compare the figure with the population in America, it would have an impact of cutting 15,000 jobs."
"The worst are the United States and especially the European Union," he said, making it clear that he hopes his country's bid to join the EU fails.
"Those who want us to stop whaling killed 64,000 blue whales between 1933 and 66, and 105,000 fin whales in the Southern Ocean. The most vocal are the ones with a guilty conscience."
Loftsson is untouched by a wave of recent research showing that cetaceans -- the order grouping whales, dolphins and porpoises -- are closer to humans that once thought in their ability to communicate, recognizing themselves in a mirror, and create what anthropologists would call culture.
"I don't believe it. If they are so intelligent, why don't they stay outside of Iceland's territorial waters?" he shot back, attributing such ideas to "a bunch of crazies."
"Whales are just another fish for me, an abundant marine resource, nothing else," he said, echoing a view shared by people in other countries that hunt or consume the huge, slow-growing mammals.
If the fin whales in the waters around Iceland were allowed to proliferate unmolested "they would become a pest" that would compete with other fish for food, he said.
At the same time, he admitted, "I would never participate to catch the last one."
Loftsson began his career in 1956 at the age of 13 as a scout scanning the horizon for whales from the bridge of his father's ship. The season lasted for about 100 sun-drenched days during the summer months.
"It was a good summer job with a good salary, enough to buy drinks and some entertainment," he recalled. "It still is."
In those days, before the era of quotas, a single boat could, in one season, haul in 50 fin whales, second only in size to blue whales. Last year, Iceland's entire whaling fleet hunted a total of 125.
All of them were caught and processed by Loftsson's Reykjavik-based Hvalur hf.
Yes, he has read "Moby Dick", or at least he's "seen the movie."
"But the technique was completely different then. I would never have signed up, it was too dangerous -- they had real guts," Loftsson said.
Today, the hunting is done with an exploding harpoon fired by a 90mm cannon and equipped with a 70-kilo (154-pound) grenade designed to explode inside the animal's brain. "Normally, it kills instantly," he explained.
For Loftsson, who attended his first IWC meeting in 1963, the organisation is worse than useless. "Its only benefit is for airlines and hotels. I wouldn't cry if it just faded away," he said.
NGO's came in for a tongue-lashing too: "A lot of white-collar beggars, against everything."
Worst of all, they want to prevent Loftsson from enjoying his favourite dish, boiled whale meat marinated for three months in fermented milk.
"The longer you keep it, the better it is. It's not like meat any more, it gets a nice fatty texture."
Share
