Icelandic coast guards and police special forces have seized a vessel operated by a foundation established by anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, detaining all 21 crew members on board. Officials confirmed the operation took place after the crew of the Icelandic whaling ship Hvalur 9 requested assistance on Thursday evening, citing concerns that their safety was being threatened by the protest vessel, known as the Bandero.
According to the Icelandic Coast Guard, the Bandero repeatedly failed to comply with official instructions, ignoring orders to depart Icelandic waters and later refusing to shut down its engines. In response, the coast guard and the Viking Squad, the police special forces unit, boarded the vessel around midnight on Thursday. Paul Watson was not present on the ship at the time of the intervention. The Captain Paul Watson Foundation confirmed the seizure in a statement, noting that the 21 crew members are currently being held aboard the vessel and have been stripped of their phones.
The ship was brought into Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, on Friday, where local police have initiated an investigation. Reports from the Icelandic national broadcaster RUV indicate that authorities intend to deport the crew and issue a ban preventing them from returning to the country. This incident occurs amid growing controversy surrounding commercial whaling in Iceland, which, alongside Norway and Japan, remains one of the few nations to continue the practice. While Iceland sets annual quotas for fin and minke whale hunts, domestic demand for whale meat has declined significantly, with most of the product exported to Japan.
Paul Watson, a 75-year-old Canadian activist and former leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has long been a polarizing figure due to his high-seas confrontations with whaling fleets. After leaving Sea Shepherd in 2022 to form his own foundation, Watson has faced various legal challenges. He was imprisoned in Greenland for five months in 2024 following his arrest on a Japanese warrant related to a 2010 incident involving the obstruction of a whaling ship. Upon his release in December 2024, he expressed caution regarding his travel plans to avoid further arrests. Watson was previously subject to an Interpol "red notice" in 2012, though he was removed from the most-wanted list in 2025. Earlier this year, the Bandero was involved in a collision with an industrial krill trawler in Antarctica, an event the ship’s Norwegian owner described as a deliberate attack that posed a risk to both the crew and the environment.
It exports most of its whale meat to Japan, but demand there has dwindled since Japan left the IWC and resumed commercial whaling in 2019.The hunt is increasingly contentious in Iceland, where whale meat is now rarely eaten.Canada-born Watson, 75, is a former head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, whose high seas confrontations with whaling vessels have drawn support from celebrities, featured in the reality television series “Whale Wars” and regularly landed him in jail.
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