Canadian anti-whaling activist detained off Iceland after ship seized

A Canadian animal-rights activist is among 21 crew members detained off the coast of Reykjavik after Icelandic authorities seized their anti-whaling protest vessel Thursday night.

Shannon Mann, from Saskatchewan and now based in Calgary, has been held aboard the Bandero without being allowed to set foot on shore. "We're told we're not arrested, but we're also told we can't leave the vessel. So we're not allowed to set foot on shore, but we can't leave Iceland," she said. Mann and the crew were told they could be detained for up to four weeks, though they have not been told what charges or violations they face.

The Icelandic Coast Guard said the seizure followed a request for assistance from the crew of the whaling ship Hvalur 9, who reported feeling threatened. The Bandero ignored coast guard instructions to leave Icelandic waters and later refused to stop its engines. Around midnight Thursday, coast guards and the police special forces unit boarded the vessel and took control of it.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation, which operates the Bandero as part of Operation 86—an initiative to end whaling in Iceland—said the 21 crew members have been detained without access to their phones. The foundation also claimed police denied the crew access to a lawyer and refused to show a warrant for searching the ship and seizing property. On Friday, law enforcement interviewed crew members and asked them to sign documents written in Icelandic.

Mann has volunteered with marine conservation efforts since 2006 and was serving as a deckhand on the Bandero. She views Iceland's continued commercial whaling as damaging the nation's reputation. "It's a beautiful country with a lot of beautiful people, and right now it's being known for whaling," she said. Iceland, along with Norway and Japan, remains one of the few countries practicing commercial whaling, though the practice is increasingly unpopular domestically and whale meat consumption has declined significantly.

Canadian-born Paul Watson, 75, founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and is known for high-seas confrontations with whaling vessels. He was imprisoned in Greenland for five months in 2024 after being arrested on a Japanese warrant related to obstructing a whaling ship in 2010, and was subject to an Interpol red notice before being removed from the most-wanted list in 2025. Watson was not aboard the Bandero when it was seized.