{"id":25212,"date":"2026-08-02T13:52:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T08:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25212"},"modified":"2026-08-02T13:52:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T08:52:44","slug":"iceland-seizes-paul-watson-foundations-anti-whaling-ship-and-detains-its-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25212","title":{"rendered":"Iceland seizes Paul Watson Foundation\u2019s anti-whaling ship and detains its crew"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F08%2Fpaul-watson.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261785646027\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Icelandic coast guards and special forces seized a ship operated by a group founded by anti-whaling activist\u00a0Paul Watson\u00a0and detained its crew, officials in the Arctic island nation said Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The Icelandic Coast Guard said the crew of whaling ship Hvalur 9 requested assistance on Thursday evening because they believed their safety was under threat from the\u00a0protest vessel Bandero.<\/p>\n<p>It said the Bandero ignored coast guards\u2019 instructions to leave Icelandic waters, and later an order to stop its engines.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The Bandero vessel is docked next to an Icelandic Coast Guard ship in the harbor of Reykjavik, Iceland, on July 31, 2026 <span class=\"credit\">CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON FOUNDATION UK\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Coast guards and the police special forces Viking Squad boarded the vessel around midnight on Thursday and detained its crew.<\/p>\n<p>Watson was not aboard.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The Captain Paul Watson Foundation confirmed in a statement that the vessel had been seized.<\/p>\n<p>It said the 21 crew members were being detained aboard the ship without their phones.<\/p>\n<p>The ship arrived Friday in Reykjavik, Iceland\u2019s capital, and police have taken over the investigation, the coast guard agency said. Icelandic national broadcaster RUV reported that police will seek to deport the crew and ban them from returning to Iceland.<\/p>\n<p>Along with Norway and Japan, Iceland is one of the only countries still practicing\u00a0commercial whaling.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Paul Watson poses for a photo after he was removed from Interpol\u2019s most-wanted list on July 23, 2025. <span class=\"credit\">AP Photo\/Thomas Padilla<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>An Icelandic Coast Guard ship off the side of the Bandero vessel owned by  Captain Paul Watson Foundation on July 30, 2026. <span class=\"credit\">Captain Paul Watson Foundation via AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The country sets annual quotas for the fin whales and minke whales fishermen are allowed to hunt in its waters.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The hunt is increasingly contentious in Iceland, where whale meat is now rarely eaten.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cWhale Wars\u201d and regularly landed him in jail.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Activist Paul Watson arrives at Charles de Gaulle\u2019s airport in Roissy, France, on Dec. 20, 2025. <span class=\"credit\">AP Photo\/Thibault Camus<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He left Sea Shepherd in 2022 to set up his foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Watson was\u00a0imprisoned in Greenland for five months\u00a0in 2024 after being arrested on a Japanese warrant over charges of obstructing a whaling ship in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>On his release in December 2024, Watson said he would be careful not to be caught again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have to make sure that I don\u2019t land in Iceland or another country where Interpol might try to have me arrested again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, Watson was made the subject of a \u201cred notice\u201d by the international police organization Interpol. He was removed from the most-wanted list in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>His hard-line tactics have split the movement he started, and marine firms have accused the anti-whaling activists of endangering vessels and lives.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, the Bandero collided with an industrial krill trawler in Antarctica in what the ship\u2019s Norwegian owner said was a deliberate attack that endangered its crew and could have caused an environmental disaster.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Icelandic coast guards and special forces seized a ship operated by a group founded by anti-whaling activist\u00a0Paul Watson\u00a0and detained its crew, officials in the Arctic island nation said Saturday. The Icelandic Coast Guard said the crew of whaling ship Hvalur 9 requested assistance on Thursday evening because they believed their safety was under threat from&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/paul-watson.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&1785646027&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}