The documentary, Slaget om kvalen or Battle of Agony, was shown on the public television network NRK, and showed graphic scenes of the whales being cut open and the fetuses removed.

Now conservationists are upset, not only due to the brutality of hunting of pregnant females but also due to the casual rejection displayed by Norwegian hunters of the International Whaling Commission's 1986 ban.

"Whale hunting is now even more unacceptable," the head of Greenpeace Norway, Truls Gulowsen, told AFP. "On the one hand because it's in violation of an international ban but also because ... it's indefensible from the point of view of the animal's well-being to hunt them during an advanced stage of gestation."

The fact that Norway is one of two countries – coupled with Iceland – that ignores the 1986 international memorandum on the whaling ban is already controversial. A report last year by OceanCare, Pro Wildlife, and the Animal Welfare Institute revealed Norway is the top whaling country in the world, killing more of the marine mammals than Iceland and Japan combined in 2014.