1400 Dolphins Slaughtered in Faroe Islands

stringcheese

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Uhuh, different, because...reasons. "inconsistent outrage" should be the name of humanity's band.
 
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$kully

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Years ago when I was working for Jerry Bruckheimer, I was on my first Avid job after transitioning from a film bench. They had me working nights re-digitizing dailies for the director’s cut DVD release of Remember The Titans. One night I came in and my boss handed me a stack of tapes and asked me to digitize them as a favor Jerry was doing for a friend who was pitching a documentary. These tapes were the raw footage that would eventually go on to become the 2009 documentary The Cove. I sat for hours in horror watchIng raw footage of dolphins getting massacred. What I saw that night was far worse than anything that made it into the final cut of the documentary. A lot of tears were shed that night.

In the end I have mixed feelings about pointing our fingers at other cultures and telling them what they shouldn’t be doing when our culture has filthy fingers. It’s a bit presumptuous. But at the same time Dolphin, like elephants, whales, many primates and a select few other species of wild mammals are pretty special which makes cruel acts like this particularly difficult to swallow.
 

keenfish

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WhT do they do with the animals?
Sea Shepherd believes this to be the largest single hunt of dolphins or pilot whales in Faroese history (the next largest being 1200 pilot whales back in 1940), and is possibly the largest single hunt of cetaceans ever recorded worldwide.

While Sea Shepherd has been fighting to stop the ‘Grind’ since the early 1980’s, this latest dolphin massacre was so brutal and badly mishandled that it is no surprise the hunt is being criticized in the Faroese media and even by many outspoken pro-whalers and politicians in the Faroe Islands.

According to locals who shared videos and photos with Sea Shepherd, this hunt broke several Faroese laws regulating the Grind. First, the Grind foreman for the district was never informed and therefore never authorized the hunt. Instead, it was another district’s foreman who called the Grind without the proper authority.

Second, many participants of the hunt had no license, which is required in the Faroe Islands, since it involves specific training in how to quickly kill the pilot whales and dolphins. However, footage shows many of the dolphins were still alive and moving even after being thrown onshore with the rest of their dead pod.

Third, photos show many of the dolphins had been run over by motorboats, essentially hacked by propellers, which would have resulted in a slow and painful death. According to locals, the hunt has been reported to the Faroese police for these violations.

Normally meat from a grindadrap is shared amongst the participants and any remainder among the locals in the district where the hunt place. However there is more dolphin meat from this hunt than anyone wants to take, so the dolphins are being offered to other districts in the hopes of not having to dump it.

The Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet published interviews with locals, whose full names are redacted for their families’ safety, explaining how a lot of Faroese are furious with what happened. “My guess is that most of the dolphins will be thrown in the trash or in a hole in the ground,” said one. “We should have quotas per district, and we should not kill dolphins,” said another. One local has asked Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to investigate the matter, saying “If she expresses her criticism, then it will also be easier for the locals who want this barbaric tradition stopped.” Others express worry that the international press showing the slaughtered dolphins put their exports at risk (the Faroe Islands export salmon to the UK, US, and Russia).

Even the local Faroese press, usually reluctant to publish anything against the hunt, quotes Hans Jacob Hermansen, former chairman of the Grind, saying the killing was unnecessary.

To get a sense of scale; this single hunt of 1428 Atlantic White Sided Dolphins at Skálabotnur approaches the Japanese government quota for the entire six-month dolphins killing/capture at the infamous ‘Cove’ at Taiji in Japan, and significantly exceeds the numbers actually killed in any recent years of the Taiji killing season.

This cruel and unnecessary hunt was carried out towards the end of the summer when the Faroese have already killed 615 long finned pilot whales, bringing the total number of cetaceans killed in 2021 in the Faroe Islands to a shocking 2043.

"Considering the times we are in, with a global pandemic and the world coming to a halt, it's absolutely appalling to see an attack on nature of this scale in the Faroe Islands," said Captain Alex Cornelissen, Sea Shepherd Global CEO. "If we have learned anything from this pandemic is that we have to live in harmony with nature instead of wiping it out."

Each year, Sea Shepherd encounters more and more locals in the Faroe Islands who are opposed to the Grind, but who are unable to speak out publicly for fear of reprisals. We will continue to support their efforts to bring an end to the ongoing slaughter of pilot whales and other dolphins.

For more information, statistics and latest news about the grind hunts, visit Sea Shepherd's Operation Bloody Fjords website or FB page.

SEE GRIND VIDEO BELOW (WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES)
 

stringcheese

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No surprise that whoever wrote that found a way to imply that it is worse because "we are in a global pandemic" :rolleyes:
Coranvirus makes dolphin eating worse!
 
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Mr Doof

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So they eat them?

1 Yes, "Normally meat from a grindadrap is shared amongst the participants and any remainder among the locals in the district where the hunt place."

2 However, "The Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet published interviews with locals, whose full names are redacted for their families’ safety, explaining how a lot of Faroese are furious with what happened. “My guess is that most of the dolphins will be thrown in the trash or in a hole in the ground,” said one. “ "
 
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