Whales caught 2016

There were only eight countries in 2016 allowed to catch whales, two officially doing ‘commercial whaling’, Norway and Iceland among those one -Iceland- didn’t catch any that year. Japan is fishing under the ‘special permit’ ruling. North America/Alaska, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Greenland are whaling with a ‘Aboriginal Subsistence’ permit with respective catch limits.

In 2016 Norway caught the highest number of whales, 591 exclusively Minke whales, followed by Japan with 488 total catches, consisting of Minke, Sei and Bryde’s whales. Japan is the only country still catching whales in Antarctic waters, catches that have been discussed by the International Court of Justice with Australia and New Zealand intervening.