For some, it creeps in softly, building over the years, while for others there is a lightning-strike moment when you just know that you have come across something that will change your life forever. For me, it was a bolt from the blue, the sighting of a whale off Provincetown, Massachusetts.

The naturalist on board a whale-watch vessel shouted, “whale at nine o’clock”, and I leaned over the port-side rail of the boat to see the dark, glistening head and back of a humpback break the surface of the water. The whale, a matriarch identified as Salt, exhaled, and I felt a cool mist blow over my face. I drew in a deep, wild, briny, wonderful breath, and embarked on a journey that has now spanned decades. I stood in awe watching Salt that day, and she inspired my work in the whale conservation movement, leading me to my current role as marine animal consultant for the Animal Welfare Institute.

Following decades of overexploitation, which saw more than two million whales killed and species after species of great whales brought to the brink, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) finally agreed in 1982 to a moratorium on whaling for commercial purposes, which took effect in 1986. Unfortunately, not all nations have respected the ban – notably Iceland, Japan and Norway. Since the moratorium began, these three nations have killed nearly 40,000 whales.

In fact, Norwegian whalers slaughtered more whales in 2020 than in each of the last three years, according to statistics released this month by the Fishermen’s Sales Organisation (Råfisklaget). So far this year, 492 minke whales have been killed — 63 more than last year — and the whaling season is still underway.

Despite the notoriety of both the Japanese and Icelandic whale hunts, it is the Norwegian whaling industry that continues to lead the world in commercial whaling. The invention of the harpoon cannon by Norwegian whaler Svend Foyn in the 19th century allowed the country’s whaling fleet to industrialise. By the late 1920s, Norway was the dominant force in global whaling, responsible for more than half of all whales killed and the leading producer of whale oil. A 1928 New York Times article acknowledged this, stating that “the centre of the world’s whaling interests… has shifted to Southern Norway”.