ICELAND

Vet profited from 'cruel' exploding whale harpoons

James Crisp
Tue, 22 August 2023 

Iceland, Japan and Norway are the only countries where commercial whaling remains legal

 - Icelandic photo agency/Alamy Stock Photo

A vet who advised Iceland on whaling helped to design a “cruel” explosive harpoon used to hunt and kill the animals.

For more than 20 years, Egil Ole Øen, a whaling expert and adviser to the Icelandic government, profited from his patent on the weapons, which are meant to cut the time whales take to die.

The grenades on the explosive harpoons are packed with penthrite and need to detonate either in the thorax, thoracic spine, neck or brain to guarantee a quick death.

But in June, Iceland temporarily banned whaling after a report said the annual killing of fin whales was taking too long and broke animal welfare laws. The ban is set to expire on August 31.

The report by the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority, which prompted the ban, documented some whales taking hours to die and having to be shot several times in last year’s season, which runs annually from June to September.

During last year’s hunt, 148 fin whales were killed.

Egil Ole Øen said he was not paid very much for the harpoon patent and denied he was in a conflict of interest - Nammco

Fin whales, which can live to 110 years and are classified as vulnerable, are the second largest creature on the planet after blue whales and are nearly 80ft when fully grown.

“Many of the whales killed in Icelandic hunts are pregnant – so you are killing the next generation,” said Danny Groves, the head of communications at Whale and Dolphin Conservation, which wants the ban made permanent.

“If the device does not explode, the harpoon cannon usually has to be reloaded for another shot. This takes about eight minutes and significantly prolongs a whale’s torment. Often it is far longer than eight minutes and can take hours.”

The method of killing is “never going to be welfare friendly”, he added, before raising concerns over Mr Ole Øen’s involvement in the practice.

“There is an ethical question here,” he said. “Having a consultant vet profiting from a cruel practice is not a good look.”

Questions have also been raised over whether frozen fin whale meat can still be exported to Japan legally because of the suspected breach of those laws.

Vet ‘proud’ of patent

Mr Ole Øen, who is also an adviser to Hvals, Iceland’s last remaining whaling company, said he was not paid very much for the patent and denied he was in a conflict of interest.

At its peak, it was less than about £2,000 a year, which he said he spent on travel expenses to attend conferences on whaling, which is still legal in Iceland, Norway and Japan.

He told The Telegraph: “The patent has nothing to do with harpoons. It is a safety that prevents from accidental fire. It has never been a secret that I have been the inventor and have shared the patent with the engineer that built it. I am proud of that it probably helped to save lives.”

He also told Iceland’s Heimildin newspaper, which reported he also trained harpoon shooters: “I know very well that there are many people who want to attack me because of my work and research on whaling.”