By Matt McGrathEnvironment
correspondent
12 July 2018
Whalers in Iceland have killed
what appears to be a blue whale, one of the largest creatures left on the
planet.
Photographic evidence from
campaigners opposed to whaling show a large animal being butchered for export.
Several experts have concluded
from these pictures that it's a juvenile male blue, a species that hasn't been
deliberately killed since 1978.
The whaling company involved say
they are confident that the animal is a hybrid between a blue and fin whale.
DNA testing will be needed to
confirm the whale's true identity.
The key reason for interest in
the species is to determine whether this killing is legal or not under
Icelandic law.
Weighing as much as 200 tonnes
and stretching up to 30 metres, blue whales were hunted to the brink by
commercial whalers from many countries including the UK from the 1940s to the
1960s when they became a protected stock under the International Whaling Commission.
That means that all countries, including Iceland agreed not to kill the creatures.
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