Norway reopened its annual whale hunting season earlier this month, continuing a practice most countries abandoned decades ago.

By the mid-20th century, industrial whaling had pushed many whale species to the brink of extinction. To stop the collapse, the International Whaling Commission implemented a global moratorium on commercial whaling in the 1980s. While most nations agreed to abide by the ban, Norway objected.

Since then, Norway has killed more than 16,000 whales. That’s more than any other country, including Japan and Iceland, which are the only two other countries that also allow whales to be killed for profit.

This year, Norway will permit the killing of 1,641 minke whales—the only species it commercially hunts, which migrates from warmer tropical waters to the northern coast of Norway and the Barents Sea in late spring and summer to feed on small fish.

The quota is set by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, and is 235 whales higher than last year’s, reflecting a pattern in recent years of rising catch limits even as annual kills remain far lower. Last year, 429 whales were killed, despite little interest amongst Norwegians in eating whale meat.

“There’s no demand for it in Norway,” said Lottie Pearson, a Norwegian anti-whaling campaigner for U.K.-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Only one percent of the country’s population claims they consume whale meat on a regular basis, according to a 2024 opinion poll conducted by a Norwegian animal rights group, NOAH.

Much of the harvested meat—about a third—is exported to Japan. What remains in Norway is increasingly marketed, falsely, as a cultural delicacy, said Kate O’Connell, senior policy consultant for the marine life program at the Animal Welfare Institute, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., which works to prevent the commercial exploitation, habitat destruction and abuse of marine animals.

“They’ve come up with whale sausages and hot dogs and hamburgers to try and snag the tourists in,” she said. Packaged whale meat products labeled as “Viking snacks” are commonly sold in airport gift shops. This is not only concerning from an ethical standpoint, said O’Connell, but poses a public health risk.

A 2024 analysis by the Animal Welfare Institute, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation nonprofit and NOAH found PFOS, commonly known as “forever chemicals,” in all tested whale meat samples. These substances, which accumulate in the body over time, have been linked to liver damage, cancers and other health issues.

At least one whaling company, Myklebust Hvalprodukter, sells raw and freeze-dried whale meat for dogs, as well as bottles of whale oil meant to increase the shine of a dog’s coat.

The company also supplies Norwegian whale products to the country’s dog-sledding community, claiming the meat helps sore paws recover from during training and competition.

Yet the majority of Norwegians don’t know whales are being slaughtered in their waters, Pearson said. “It’s out of sight, out of mind.”

Most hunts occur in remote waters and do not require any independent onboard monitoring. Whaling vessels are required to report data related to their catch via an electronic reporting system managed by Norway’s Directorate of Fisheries, under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries. The ministry grants whaling companies permits to hunt minke whales each hunting season, from about April to September.

Some of the data vessels report includes the number of whales killed and how many of those were female and pregnant. According to last year’s data, 287 of the whales killed were female. Around 60 percent of them were pregnant.

“It’s mainly pregnant females that are caught because they are near shore and easier to catch,” said Siri Martinsen, a veterinarian and director of NOAH, who has been campaigning against whaling since the 1990s.

This trend is highly problematic for the future of the species, according to O’Connell, who has been advocating against commercial whaling for more than 40 years.

A 2019 risk assessment of minke whale populations, conducted by the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and Environment, found that disproportionately killing females can significantly reduce population growth and destabilize whale populations over time.

This added pressure could further jeopardize the species, which is also already being impacted by climate change, O’Connell said. Changes in prey distribution, due to rising ocean temperatures, are forcing the animals to move into new areas to find food. Some still may not be eating enough.

Last year, there were reports of thin-looking whales, said Peter Carr, chief operating officer and director of investigations at the Endangered Species Protection Agency, a London-based charity that has been investigating the whaling industry in Norway. “They clearly haven’t fed up well over winter,” he said.

But Norway’s government maintains that the minke whale hunts are sustainable.

“Norway has a sustainable catch on minke whales as we have had for decades,” a spokesperson from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries wrote in an email. “The minke whale stock is sustainably managed, and harvest levels in recent years have been lower than established quotas. As a result, trade in minke whale products remains relatively limited.”

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Even limited trade, critics say, can have cascading impacts, not only for minke whales, but for the broader marine ecosystem—even the global climate.

“We know more now that the whales contribute to biodiversity and also to the ocean’s ability to to fight climate change,” said Martinsen.

A single whale can capture roughly 30 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, compared to about a dozen tons absorbed by an oak tree over hundreds of years, according to NOAA Fisheries. When it dies and sinks to the seafloor, that carbon is then sequestered for hundreds to thousands of years.

Through their waste, whales also release nutrients that stimulate phytoplankton growth—microscopic organisms that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and support the entire marine food web, including tiny crustaceans and insect larvae that many commercially valuable fish feed on.

In high-latitude feeding grounds such as the Nordic and Barents Seas, minke, humpback, fin and other filter-feeding whales have been found to increase ocean productivity by up to 10 percent during summer months, according to a 2025 study by the Institute of Marine Research in Norway.

This ecosystem service should not be taken for granted, said Carla Freitas, a senior scientist at the institute, who co-authored the study.

“You just simply cannot make whaling humane.”

— Kate O’Connell, Animal Welfare Institute

Norwegian officials have argued that whales must be controlled because they consume large amounts of fish, Freitas said. But on the contrary, she said, “what we show is that whales are not just removing fish, they are contributing to a good balance and [healthy]ecosystem.” Without them, the ocean would be far less productive. “We should make every effort we can to protect them,” she said.

According to Norway’s whaling regulations, hunting methods must ensure the animal does not experience unnecessary suffering. But O’Connell said that’s impossible. “You just simply cannot make whaling humane.”

A growing body of scientific research also demonstrates whales are highly intelligent, sentient beings, capable of using complex communication, forming strong social bonds and feeling emotions such as grief and pain.

Over the past several years, filmmaker and activist Peter Carr and his team at the Endangered Species Protection Agency have followed Norwegian whaling vessels, documenting what unfolds at sea. What they saw, he said, was often chaotic and imprecise—hunters aiming their grenade-tipped harpoons and rifles from moving boats at animals that surface only briefly to breathe before diving again.

An estimated one in five whales does not die instantly after being struck by a harpoon, according to NOAH. Many take minutes to die—on average at least six, said Pearson. One whale, Carr observed, took 26 minutes to die. “It was shocking,” he said.

In one case, he witnessed a whale escape from the whaling vessel after being struck with a harpoon, the weapon still embedded in its body as it swam away. Another was pulled alongside a vessel after being struck, still alive. The whale’s eyes were moving as if they were looking around, he said. “It was clearly in distress.”

As the whaling season continues, groups like Whale and Dolphin Conservation and NOAH are intensifying efforts to bring such realities into public view and press policymakers to end commercial whaling. “They are the ones who can stop it,” said Martinsen.

In the meantime, it’s critical for the public to openly reject the hunt, putting further pressure on politicians, Pearson said. “We need Norwegians to step up and say that we don’t want whaling to be a part of our current story.”