May 7, 2023

Meet Kristján Loftsson, a modern-day Captain Ahab.

It’s hard to believe that there are men living today who harbor an obsession with killing whales.

Kristján was born in 1943. He first began whaling at the age of 13 as a scout on one of his father’s harpoon vessels. He became CEO of his father’s company Hvalur hf in 1974 after the death of his father.

This one man is responsible for the deaths of more whales than anyone else on the planet. He and his ships have slain tens of thousands of whales and he is the only person who hunts down and kills endangered Fin whales. He has recently said that he will continue to kill whales as long as there is a market for whale meat. That market is primarily in Japan, but he does sell whale meat to restaurants in Reykjavik where some unethical tourists indulge in eating something that is forbidden in their home countries. 

At eighty years of age, he continues to be defiant. One of the wealthiest men in Iceland, he has a great deal of influence with members of the Icelandic government. The Icelandic government has said that they will not renew Loftsson’s whaling permits for 2024 but so far, they have not confirmed this and Loftsson is confident that they will not, which is why he recently refitted and repainted his two harpoon vessels.

At one time he had four killing ships but in 1986 we sank two of them at dockside and destroyed the onshore whaling station. As a result, commercial whaling operations were shut down for quite a few years. Those two whaling ships now are rusting away on an Icelandic beach and my biggest regret is that we did not scuttle all four of them.

Our campaign this summer is not against Iceland. It is directed at this one man and his criminal whaling operations.

Fin whales are an endangered species and commercial whaling has been unlawful since 1986 when the International Whaling Commission declared a global moratorium on whaling. That moratorium continues to be in force. Unfortunately, the IWC has no powers of enforcement and member nations of the IWC have restricted their opposition to official letters of protest to Iceland.

Since 1986 I have taken it upon myself to be the agent of enforcement for the IWC, despite the fact that our sinking of the Icelandic whalers had me permanently banned from attending IWC meetings. Iceland is also banned from membership in the IWC.

This places me as a renegade anti-whaler in opposition to a renegade whale killer.

I am confident that Loftsson will use his influence to further embarrass the Icelandic people by moving ahead with his plans to murder whales this summer.

Our mission this summer is to stop him.

Join us in taking on this modern-day Captain Ahab, a man so obsessed with killing whales that he is willing to humiliate his own country in defense of his perverse and deadly obsession of inflicting horrific pain and death on one of the most intelligent and gentle citizens on the planet.

Captain Ahab needs to meet up once again with Captain Nemo.