Officials in Iceland confirmed the seizure of a ship operated by a group founded by anti-whaling activist Paul Watson and the detention of its crew. The Icelandic Coast Guard reported that the whaling vessel Hvalur 9 requested assistance Thursday evening, fearing its safety was threatened by the protest ship, Bandero.
The Coast Guard stated that Bandero ignored commands to exit Icelandic waters and later defied an instruction to halt its engines. Coast Guard personnel, accompanied by the Viking Squad police special forces, boarded Bandero around midnight Thursday, apprehending its crew while Watson was absent.
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation released a statement confirming the ship’s capture, noting the detention of 21 crew members without access to their phones. On Friday, the vessel reached Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, with the police assuming control of the investigation. Icelandic broadcaster RUV shared that law enforcement intends to deport the crew and prohibit their future entry to Iceland.
Iceland remains among the few nations, along with Norway and Japan, actively involved in commercial whaling. The country assigns yearly quotas for hunting fin and minke whales, predominantly exporting their meat to Japan. However, demand has declined since Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and recommenced commercial whaling in 2019.
In Iceland, whaling is a contentious topic as whale meat consumption has significantly decreased. Paul Watson, originally from Canada and now 75, served as the former leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, renowned for its confrontational tactics against whaling vessels.
These interventions gained celebrity support, were documented in the reality TV series “Whale Wars,” and resulted in frequent legal challenges for Watson. In 2022, he departed Sea Shepherd to initiate his own foundation. Watson was incarcerated for five months in Greenland in 2024 following an arrest on a Japanese warrant related to obstructing a whaling vessel in 2010.
Upon release in December 2024, Watson expressed a need for caution, planning to avoid nations where Interpol might attempt another arrest. In 2012, Interpol issued a “red notice” for Watson, which was subsequently rescinded in 2025.
His rigorous strategies have divided his movement, attracting criticism from maritime companies alleging that these anti-whaling actions pose risks to vessels and lives. Earlier in the year, Bandero had collided with an industrial krill trawler in Antarctica, an incident claimed by the trawler’s Norwegian owner as a purposeful act threatening both crew safety and environmental stability.