Whole Foods Market Bans Icelandic Fish

Whole Foods Market (WFM) has banned the marketing of Icelandic products because of Iceland's illegal resumption of commercial whaling.

Minister of Fisheries Einar K. Gudfinnsson told the Icelandic newspaper Fréttabladid that the supermarket's decision is disappointing and said it is possible that other American companies will react the same way.

The minister received a letter from Kenneth J. Meyer CEO of WFM's East Coast branch in November saying the company could not continue marketing Icelandic products as their clients were opposed to whaling.

Gudfinnsson told Fréttabladid that he had expected a short-term negative effect of the government's decision to resume commercial whaling, but he believes that with time people will come to understand Iceland's reasons for sustainable whaling.

Captain Paul Watson disagrees, saying, "The civilized world will never accept the slaughter of whales. Henrich Himmler once said that in time, the world would understand that Germany's policy of exterminating ‘inferior people' would be understood and accepted."

Recent research has demonstrated that whales share a type of brain cell called spindles with only humans, mountain gorillas, and chimps. The killing of whales is the extermination of a sentient, self aware, intelligent, and socially complex being. It is in effect - murder.

Sea Shepherd is presently involved in opposing illegal Japanese whaling in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. Given the resources, the Society is prepared to send ships to the North Atlantic in the summer of 2007 to oppose pirate whaling operations by Iceland.

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