Eclipsed by solar eclipse, European Union negotiations, mink farm release, and even Reykjavik traffic
REYKJAVIK, Iceland; PARIS, France––Paul Watson, 75, founder of the Paul Watson Foundation in 2022 after getting the boot from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society he founded in 1977, is counting on global publicity and outrage over the resumption of Icelandic whaling to get the Bandero, the only Paul Watson Foundation ship, out of Icelandic impound; free the 19-member crew from possible time in an Icelandic brig; and into the bargain, stop Hvalur, the last Icelandic whaling company, from killing more than the 32 whales already killed when the Bandero was captured.
Unfortunately for Watson, posting updates to social media from Paris, and for the Bandero prisoners held in Iceland, 24 hours after the July 30, 2026 impoundment, Agence France Presse appeared to have been the only major international news agency to pay any attention to the fracas at all.
London-based Associated Press reporter Jill Lawless posted coverage of it on August 1, 2026. Three other major news media posted articles from Iceland, but about a solar eclipse that will be visible in Iceland on August 12, 2026.
(Paul Watson Foundation photo)
What else media covered
Three other news agencies on the preceding day ran articles originating from Iceland.
Euronews.com and Financial Times focused on a referendum scheduled for August 29, 2026 on whether to resume negotiations seeking membership in the European Union, suspended since 2013.
Membership would entail observing the European Union moratorium on whaling.
Headlined Iceland Monitor, “No major traffic delays expected leaving the capital.”
The leading Iceland Monitor article having to do with animal advocacy on July 30, 2026 described an alleged release of 8,000 mink from the last Icelandic mink farm.
But Iceland Monitor did report earlier on July 31, 2026 that, “The Icelandic Coast Guard and the National Commissioner of Police’s Viking Squad boarded the Bandero, a vessel operated by the Paul Watson Foundation, last night and took control of the ship.
“Earlier in the evening,” Iceland Monitor said, “the crew of the whaling vessel Hvalur 9 requested assistance from the Coast Guard.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Viking Squad
According to an Icelandic Coast Guard statement, “At around 5:00 p.m. yesterday, the Coast Guard’s operations center received a report that the Bandero had entered Iceland’s 12-nautical-mile territorial waters and was heading toward the whaling vessel Hvalur 9.
“The crew of Hvalur 9 informed the Coast Guard that they considered the vessel to be threatening them.
“A Coast Guard helicopter, which was already conducting a surveillance flight, was immediately dispatched to the scene and instructed the Bandero to leave the area.
“At the same time, the crew of the Coast Guard patrol vessel Freyja was called out. When Freyja arrived a short time later, the captain of the Bandero was ordered to stop the vessel’s engines, but failed to comply.
“The Coast Guard’s helicopter unit was then deployed to transport members of the National Commissioner of Police’s Viking Squad to the patrol vessel Freyja, while the Coast Guard’s special operations unit headed to the scene in fast response boats.
“Shortly before midnight, officers from the Viking Squad and the Coast Guard’s special operations unit boarded the Bandero, arrested its captain, and took control of the vessel,” escorting it to Reykjavík.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Kristján Loftsson, the Icelandic Ahab
The episode unfolded after Kristján Loftsson, 84, chief executive of Hvalur, the last Icelandic whaling company, driven by an enduring thirst for vengeance against anti-whaling activists, Paul Watson in particular, on June 19, 2026 sent the last two whaling trawlers in Iceland, Hvalur 8 and Hvalur 9, out into the North Atlantic Ocean to kill quotas of as many as 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales.
Fin whales are recognized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as a vulnerable species.
Loftsson’s father founded Hvalur, whose name means “whaler” in Icelandic, in 1947. Loftsson first sailed with his father as a 13-year-old whale spotter in 1956.
Scuttled whaling ships
Anti-whaling activists Rod Coronado and David Howitt, acting under the flag of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in November 1986 vandalized the Hvalur whale processing plant in Hvalfjörður fjord and scuttled the whaling ships Hvalur 6 and Hvalur 7 in Reykjavík harbor.
The Hvalur 6 and Hvalur 7 were both refloated, but were never repaired and returned to service. Loftsson replaced them with the Hvalur 8 and Hvalur 9, of similar appearance but newer construction.
For more than five weeks after the Loftsson boats began hunting whales, the Bandero tried to find the Hvalur 8 and Hvalur 9 on the high seas, without success.
“War games”
Paul Watson posted occasional updates about the search to Facebook, interspersed with doggerel, rantings and ravings about the war in the Middle East, and many fan mail comments, though far fewer than years ago.
Then Watson’s reputation as a prominent whaling foe, established since confronting Russian whalers off the California coast in 1975, was continually boosted by six seasons of the Animal Planet reality television series Whale Wars, detailing his confrontations with Japanese whalers within the International Whaling Commission-designated but otherwise unprotected Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.
Posted Paul Watson to Facebook on July 28, 2026, “The world’s most notorious whaling nations––Japan, Norway, and Iceland––have gathered for war games in Iceland.
“As the Bandero continues opposition to the illegal whaling operations by cetacean serial killer Kristjian Loftsson, the Japanese Navy sent a warship to Iceland,” specifically the training ship J.S. Kashima.
A second Japanese training ship, the Yamagiri, also reportedly arrived in Iceland.
“Criminal whaling nations”
“I would not be surprised if the Japanese and the Norwegians are assisting the Icelandic Coast Guard with surveillance,” Watson said. “After all, the Icelandic Coast Guard is providing coordinates on the Bandero to the whalers and the whalers have been given permission to shut off their legally required AIS System,” which uses VHS radio frequencies and GPS to identify the locations of ships at sea.
Alleged Watson, “Japan, Iceland and Norway are criminal whaling nations. All three countries are involved in violating the International Whaling Commission Moratorium on Commercial Whaling passed in 1986. These regulations were upheld in 2014 by the International Court of Justice. The signatory nations to the IWC are obligated to impose sanctions on these three nations, but have refused to do so, citing trade considerations. This is why we have to intervene. Because world leaders refuse to uphold their responsibilities under international law.”
Watson did not mention the bottom line of the Agence France Presse report: “Iceland is due to introduce a bill this autumn aimed at banning whaling.”
This would presumably be a prerequisite for Iceland joining the European Union.
The net trick as usual nets nothing
Later on July 30, 2026, Watson posted, “The Bandero has found the Hvalur 9 and is now in pursuit. The Bandero has located the whaler Hvalur 9 as it heads out to sea to hunt for whales.
Updated Icelandic journalist Stefánsson, “Bandero, the ship that has been outside Icelandic jurisdiction for the past few weeks and is owned by the Paul Watson organization, is now trying to stop the whaling ship Hvalur 9.
“This is confirmed by Magnús Pálmar Jónsson, operations manager at the Icelandic Coast Guard. Hvalur 9 is now at sea north of Garðsskagi, according to Marine Traffic,” which uses the AIS system that Watson said Hvalur 9 had turned off.
“According to news agency sources,” Stefánsson said, “the crew of the Bandero are trying to throw a net into the propeller of the Hvalur 9,” a tactic that both the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Paul Watson Foundation have often allegedly used, without a single reported success in more than 50 attempts mentioned by various media over more than 20 years.
Opposition to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Paul Watson Foundation have also allegedly used the same tactic, also without any reported success discovered by ANIMALS 24-7.
“Forced them back into port”
“We located them [the Hvalur 9] while they were out, monitored them both from land and sea, received them, and forced them back into port,” Watson told media.
Marine Traffic later said the Hvalur 9 “is now heading back out to sea, from Hvalfjörður.”
Both locations are within 20 miles of Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital.
Along with Iceland Monitor and Agence France Presse, the trade periodical Maritime Executive offered coverage.
Updated Jón Þór Stefánsson for the Icelandic online periodical Visir.Is, “Watson says he doesn’t care if his ship’s crew were arrested and tried in Iceland. This would only increase attention to the cause he is fighting for.”
Updated Watson on July 31, 2026, “The Icelandic Coast Guard and two Japanese warships have the Bandero captive with the bow of the two Japanese ships pointed directly at the Bandero.
“Objective is to focus attention”
“The objective of our campaign, Operation 86,” Watson said, “is to focus international attention on the continued illegal actions of Kristjian Loftsson.
“Engaging the whalers at sea was extremely difficult because of the defense of these criminal whaling operations by the Icelandic Coast Guard,” Watson explained.
“Having the ship boarded and detained and appropriately hemmed in by both the Japanese navy and the Icelandic Coast Guard is perfect symbolism for the corruption of power we are challenging.
“This confrontation with the Icelandic Coast Guard and the whalers did not injure anyone,” Watson said, “nor did it cause any physical property damage. The Bandero was boarded in international waters,” Watson claimed, “by an armed boarding party of masked individuals. The crew are being held captive onboard the Bandero under armed guard.
“Iceland has given us a public forum”
“On the positive side,” Watson said, “Iceland has given us a public forum to expose their shameful operations. We will rally for our crew internationally.
“We will appeal to people around the world,” Watson repeated.
“I am appealing to the hundreds of thousands of people who defended me during my five months of detainment in a Greenland prison in 2024. The Japanese failed to extradite me because of that support,” Watson said.
(See Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson freed from Greenland jail & heading home.)
Hvalur 9 is back out at sea killing whales
“The crew [of the Bandero] are still being detained,” Watson acknowledged. “We are not worried. They did not cause any injury or damage, the ship was boarded in international waters,” which Iceland disputes, “there are certainly no felony charges, and the campaign has focused an international spotlight on Iceland illegal whaling operations.
“The Icelandic Coast Guard dressed up like American ICE agents for the boarding, masks and guns against unarmed whale defenders. Frankly they looked ridiculously dramatic but great images for our purposes.
“The crew have been amazing,” Watson said, “and for the first time we forced a whaling ship to return to port.”
But the Hvalur 9 is back out at sea killing whales, the Bandero is going nowhere, and the “international spotlight” more than 24 hours later looked more like a flickering dim bulb.
(Paul Watson Foundation photo)
Collision with krill trawler
The Bandero sailed toward Iceland after a collision with the Norwegian krill trawler Antarctic Sea reported on April 1, 2026 by Joshua Goodman for Associated Press.
“A two-minute video provided to The Associated Press by the Aker QRILL Co. of Norway shows the moment when the Bandero, operated by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, slowly steams toward the stern of the Antarctic Sea, hitting the fishing vessel on its port side at a slight angle,” Goodman wrote.
“The collision underscores the growing battle in the frigid Southern Ocean over the future of Antarctic krill,” Goodman explained, “a shrimplike crustacean central to the diet of whales and critical buffer to global warming, also in demand for use in health supplements, fishmeal, and other products.
Crocodile tears on the high seas
Aker QRILL Co. alleged, Goodman summarized, “that the Bandero came within inches of striking a diesel tank on the fishing vessel, and put at risk a habitat teeming with multiple whale species, seals and seabirds — all feeding on the ocean’s abundant but environmentally sensitive krill population.
“The company said its multinational crew was shaken but unharmed and it would pursue all available legal action,” Goodman added. “The company alerted naval authorities in Argentina and Chile, one of which is deploying a vessel to the area near the Antarctic peninsula where the collision took place.”
The collision, Goodman said, “followed a tense, five-hour standoff in which the Bandero’s crew,” headed by French activist Lamya Essemlali, launched giant metal net-shredding devices intended to disrupt fishing by two Aker vessels.”
Tequila!
Aker QRILL Co., Goodman noted, “is the world’s largest harvester of krill, responsible for over half the world’s catch. Fishing in Antarctica for krill surged to a record last season, forcing an early closure of fishing activity for the first time.”
The Bandero, Goodman explained, “is named after the tequila company owned by John Paul DeJoria, an American billionaire who founded Paul Mitchell hair care products and has been a longtime supporter of Watson’s endeavors.”
According to The Maritime Executive, Bandero, acquired by the Paul Watson Foundation in 2024, is a 210-foot former Japanese fisheries patrol vessel. Watson was not aboard.”
Mink release
The mink release that at least briefly upstaged the seizure of the Bandero in Iceland hit the Dalsbú mink farm in Mosfellsdalur, owned by one Ásgeir Pétursson since 1986.
“Pétursson had a total of 12,000 minks at the farm and estimates that around 8,000 were let out,” reported Iceland Monitor.
Hundreds of the escaped minks were reportedly shot before finding their way off the premises.
“Most of them are still on the property and have not traveled far,” Iceland Monitor said.
Mink farming in Iceland, begun in the early 1930s, peaked in 1988, with more than 85,000 mink kept on more than 70 farms. Escaped mink, meanwhile, established an enduring feral population, with only one competitor in the role of terrestrial predator, the Arctic fox.
Mink proved more successful than foxes in hunting nesting sea birds and spawning Arctic char and salmon. The Icelandic government in 1939 put a bounty on mink, requiring all local councils to employ at least one mink hunter.
Despite that, the feral mink population rose steadily for more than 60 years, before falling by 60% for unknown reasons between 2003 and 2015, coinciding with a parallel decline in the Arctic fox population.
Both declines among Icelandic predators are believed to reflect the influence of global warming on their prey.
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