whaling resumes

Iceland's Fisheries Minister has announced that commercial whaling will resume, with an initial quota of 30 minke whales and 9 fin whales.
The minke page is somewhat inaccurate - the meat has been for sale for some years, and is also served in a number of restaurants. It got relatively popular with the surge in interest in traditional cuisine and as the better restaurants focused on local cuisine with local ingredients and modern fusion cuisine.

This is distinct from the "scientific whaling" that Iceland has intermittently conducted over the last couple of decades. Current quota for scientific whaling is 39 minkes, based on a plan to get a sample of 200 minkes from 2003 to 2007.
The total permitted take calculated by the National Oceanic Institute was 400 minke and 200 fins, substantially more than is permitted.
Estimated stock on the Icelandic coastal shelf is about 25000 fins and 43000 minke.

Here is the official government line on the issue

Other nations currently permitting whale hunts are the USA, Russia, Greenland, Norway, Japan and a small number of small island nations.

Be interesting to see what the reaction is, and how it affects commercial whale sightseeing.

Interestingly, Iceland's "special forces" conducted an anti-terrorism exercise a few days ago, with the help of the USS Wasp, currently doing a port visit.
The scenario was a large bomb planted at the whaling station north of Reykjavik...