Outcry as Faroe Islands slaughter 1,400 dolphins in a day

The authorities of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous Danish territory, confronted an outcry on Tuesday over the culling of greater than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in a day in what was mentioned to be the only largest hunt within the northern archipelago.

“There is no doubt that the Faroese whale hunts are a dramatic sight to people unfamiliar to the hunts and slaughter of mammals,” a authorities spokesman advised AFP.

“The hunts are, nevertheless, well organised and fully regulated,” he mentioned.

Traditionally, the North Atlantic islands—which have a inhabitants of round 50,000 individuals—hunt pilot whales and never dolphins, the spokesman mentioned.

“There are usually a few of them in the ‘grind’, but we normally don’t kill such a large number,” mentioned an area tv journalist, Hallur av Rana.

The “grindadrap” is a observe whereby the hunters first encompass the whales with a large semi-circle of fishing boats after which drive them right into a bay to be beached and slaughtered.

“It looks quite extreme and it took some time to kill them all, while it’s usually pretty quick,” av Rana mentioned.

Photos displaying the bloodied corpses of greater than 1,000 Atlantic white-sided dolphins on the seashore sparked outrage on social media.

According to av Rana, though some 53 p.c of the islands‘ inhabitants are against the “grind”, there no plans to abolish the observe. The authorities insist it’s a sustainable approach of searching.

Sea Shepherd, a charity that campaigns in opposition to the searching of whales and dolphins, described it as a “barbaric practice”.

According to native estimates, there are round 100,000 pilot whales within the waters across the Faroe Islands and round 600 had been killed final 12 months.

© 2021 AFP