Philip Hoare Guardian ‘They might as well have shot a giant panda. This week an Icelandic whaling company, Hvalur hf, caused uproar when it was revealed that it had killed a blue whale. Hvalur has killed hundreds of fin whales – mostly destined as meat for export to Japan. It resumed its hunt in June, after a three-year hiatus. But no blue whale – a highly endangered cetacean – has been deliberately killed for 40 years.

“We have never caught a blue whale in our waters since they were protected,” Kristján Loftsson, the managing director of Hvalur told CNN. “We see them in the ocean. When you approach a blue whale, it’s so distinct that you leave it alone.”

Hvalur claims that the whale was a blue-fin whale hybrid. But experts agree the slumped leviathan on the Icelandic killing slope shows all the features of the largest animal that has ever existed on Earth. The mottled blue skin, the black baleen, the relatively tiny, hooked dorsal fin – all point to a pure blue whale (as if its purity actually mattered). Having seen many blue whales at close quarters, I can attest to this identification. As Peter Wilson, a whale expert and tour guide to Iceland, notes in his blog: “Whether they thought it was a blue or had someone out there who doesn’t know the difference, it shows complete disregard for any idea of expertise and a scientifically supported sense of sustainability”. Click here to read more