The Man Who Profits from Every Whale That’s Harpooned

He built the grenade that kills whales. Now he tells governments it’s humane.

The deck is slick with salt and spray.
A crew member shouts over the radio, the whale has surfaced again.
The harpoon is loaded. The shot fires. A deep boom echoes across the bay.
The whale jerks, dives, then surfaces again, alive, thrashing, wounded.
She will not die for another 35 minutes.

This is not historical footage, this happened, in Icelandic waters, in 2023.
The method that made this torture possible was designed by a veterinarian.

The Ethics of Impact

In the world of whaling, one name carries extraordinary weight, Dr Egil Øen.

To governments, he’s an expert. To NAMMCO (more on them later), he’s an architect. To animals, he’s the reason the grenade doesn’t kill fast enough.

This article is not a personal vendetta. It’s a reckoning with the quiet power of a man who built the system, and still defends it, even as the evidence mounts that it no longer works.

The Whale Grenade

Modern whaling relies on an explosive harpoon grenade, typically the Whale Grenade-99, designed by Øen and patented in Norway. It’s meant to detonate inside the whale’s body after penetrating about 70 cm, ideally destroying the brain or heart.

The problem is that whales are not easy targets.

Their skulls are inches thick. Their hearts are buried deep inside a fortress of flesh. The ocean is a chaotic, unpredictable hunting ground.

The kill shot is rare.
Suffering is inevitable.

Who Is Dr Egil Øen?

Øen is a veterinary scientist and long-time consultant for NAMMCO (the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission). He has helped shape whaling policy across the world. For decades, his assessments have been used to justify commercial whale killing.

He also helped develop the Blue Box, a now-defunct electronic monitoring system once used in Norway to collect data on whaling efficiency.

Øen’s claim that “most whales die instantly” is no longer credible and the scientific community knows it.

NAMMCO: The Whaling Club That Writes Its Own Rules

NAMMCO was formed in 1992 by Iceland, Norway, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

On paper, it promotes “sustainable marine mammal management.”

In reality, it functions as a self-appointed whalers’ alliance, sidestepping global opposition to commercial whaling.

Think of it as a parallel universe to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which banned commercial whaling in 1986 and includes 88 countries.

NAMMCO? Just four. All still whaling.

They set their own rules.
Define their own “science”.
Appoint their own “experts”.

And their lead welfare advisor?
Dr Egil Øen, the man who designed the exploding harpoon.

When Øen disputes modern veterinary assessments of suffering, NAMMCO listens. When governments publish reports showing whales are taking 10, 20, even 35 minutes to die, NAMMCO disagrees and turns to its in-house expert.

This isn’t oversight.
It’s a closed loop of justification.

Cracks in the Foundation

“Øen makes his comments and assessments alone, against an entire expert panel of veterinarians… Here we see that researchers and professionals do not trust each other’s results.”
— Unn Haukenes Holgersen, Norwegian veterinarian, May 2024

Let’s break down the criticism.

Four Reasons Øen’s Claims Don’t Hold

1. His data is contradicted by veterinary authorities

According to Iceland’s 2023 MAST report (a report from Iceland’s official animal welfare agency):

• Only 71% of whales die instantly

• 29% suffer, often for over 10 minutes

• 21% are shot more than once

• One whale died after 35 minutes

These figures are nearly identical to 2022, the year the hunts were ruled unlawful under Iceland’s Animal Welfare Act.

Øen disputes these numbers.

2. His methodology is flawed

Øen’s reports are often based on limited or unverified field observations. Ignoring:

• Sea state

• Whale size

• Shot angle

• Harpoon trajectory

• Crew experience

Whaling is messy and unpredictable. His reports read like controlled lab trials.

3. He has a financial stake in the outcome

Øen owns the patent on the Whale Grenade‑99. So, every time it’s made or sold, he earns money.

Each grenade costs around $600 / €550. In 2023, Iceland used 195, over €107,000 spent. Add Norway and Japan? He’s likely earning six figures a year.

This isn’t just a conflict of interest. It’s profit built on pain. Yet Øen is still treated as a neutral expert.

4. His standards wouldn’t pass in a slaughterhouse

I sent the former UK Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer the following footage from Iceland’s 2023 whaling season, showing a whale taking 35 minutes to die. (Graphic content: a fin whale shot with an exploding harpoon.)

He’s overseen slaughter regulation. He knows the benchmarks.

Alick was unequivocal. If these statistics came from a terrestrial slaughterhouse, the facility would be shut down.

“Any method of killing that requires animals to be shot twice at least 20% of the time… is unacceptable.”
- Alick Simmons, former UK Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer

The NAMMCO Manual: A Gruesome Checklist

NAMMCO’s 2024 harpoon-use instructions, co-authored by Øen, include this step-by-step process:

• Attach the grenade by hand

• Fire from the bow-mounted cannon

• Watch for signs of detonation:

  • Loud noise

  • Shaking in the animal

  • Whale rolls onto its back

  • Whale sinks without moving

These are not signs of instant death, they are signs of trauma,

Trauma, by any modern standard, is not humane killing.

We Need New Thinking

Øen’s early work made a difference. He helped develop the Blue Box, a tracking tool that brought more transparency to Norweguan whaling. He also trained crews and introduced tools to measure kill times and shot accuracy, real steps toward better welfare.

When progress stands still, however, it becomes part of the problem.

We now know:

• Whales are highly intelligent and social

• They experience pain, fear, and distress

• Death at sea is chaotic, unregulated and uncontrollable

Yet Øen still stands by his 30-year-old methods and governments still cite him.

That has to change.

Until Whaling Ends, It Must Be Watched

I believe in a future where all commercial whaling is banned, but that future isn’t here, yet.

Until it is, we must demand better oversight, not just for the whales, but for the integrity of the law and the science that underpins it.

We need:

• Independent veterinary assessments, not internal appraisals

• Transparent monitoring systems on every vessel, like the Blue Box once was

• Welfare-based performance thresholds, grounded in data, not assumptions

• Zero tolerance for conflicts of interest in welfare science

This isn’t hypothetical. In 2023, Iceland’s own animal welfare authority used independent monitoring and post-mortem data to conclude that the country’s fin whale hunts violated Icelandic animal welfare law. That decision led to a temporary suspension of all commercial whaling in the country.

It showed what can happen when transparency, data and the rule of law are allowed to work.

We cannot let the man who built the weapon declare it painless. We cannot let one voice override decades of independent research. We cannot look away, not while suffering continues in plain sight.

Final Thought

There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea.

Whales are dying slow, violent deaths for a market that barely exists, kept alive by subsidies, nationalism and denial.

In any other industry, the inventor of a killing device would not be allowed to define its ethical acceptability. In most fields, it would be described plainly as a conflict of interest so severe it borders on institutionalised malpractice.

The people designing the tools should not be the ones writing the rules.

Animal suffering cannot be reduced to a technical issue.

Science should never be ignored to protect outdated practices.

One whale took 35 minutes to die.

That should have been the last.

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— Luke

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