One of Iceland’s two remaining whaling ships set out this week to hunt the giant mammals after a two-year hiatus, local media and campaigners reported on Saturday.

Iceland is one of only three countries that still openly permit whaling, alongside Norway and Japan – despite international opprobrium from the public and animal welfare organisations.

A protester chained himself to the mast of the vessel before it left the port of Reykjavik on Friday. He climbed down in the evening and was escorted away by police, RUV media said.

“It is so disheartening to see Iceland’s whaling boat leave port to begin another season of whale slaughter despite overwhelming evidence that there is no humane way to kill a whale,” Joanna Swabe of the Humane World for Animals NGO said after the second vessel headed out to sea.

“These ocean giants will very likely endure an agonising death for meat that virtually no one in Iceland wants to eat,” she said.

Iceland cancelled its whale hunt in 2024 and 2025, partly because economic woes had cut demand and the industry was not deemed sufficiently profitable.