Minke whale In August 2003, Iceland announced it would start research catches to estimate whether the stocks around the island could sustain hunting. Three years later, in 2006, Iceland resumed commercial whaling. A 2007 analysis of DNA fingerprinting of whale meat estimated South Korean fishermen caught 827 minke between 1999 and 2003, approximately twice the officially reported number. This raised concerns that some whales were being caught deliberately. Due to their relative abundance, minke whales are often the focus of whale-watching cruises setting sail from, for instance, the Isle of Mull in Scotland, County Cork in Ireland and Húsavík in Iceland, and
Minke Smeets Minke Smeets Minke Smeets ("née" Smabers; born March 22, 1979 in The Hague, South Holland) is a field hockey midfielder from the Netherlands. Her current team is Laren. She was part of the team that won the 2007 Champions Trophy. During the Champions Trophy she became the all-time record holder in caps for the national team, wearing the orange jersey for the 235th time in her career in the final, breaking Mijntje Donners' record. She won an Olympic gold medal with the Dutch team by beating China in the final of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. During the closing