National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Photo: Iceland Breaks Whale-Hunt Ban, Kills Fin Whale


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A fin whale—the second largest animal species living on Earth today—surfaces.

Icelandic whalers killed one of the rare whales on October 21, 2006, the start of a controversial plan to break a 20-year ban on commercial whaling. In total, the country plans to hunt 9 fin whales and 30 minke whales, smaller cousins to the fin, by August 2007.

Photograph courtesy Protected Resouces Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, California, http://swfsc.nmfs.noaa.gov/PRD/