It is in the "culture" of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous province of Denmark lost in the North Sea.
The local government on Tuesday defended the killing of more than 1,400 dolphins in a single day during a traditional hunt, despite the emotion aroused by this massacre of unusual magnitude, even for the northern archipelago.
“There is no doubt that the cetacean hunt in the Faroe Islands is a dramatic sight for those unaccustomed to the slaughter of mammals.
These hunts are nevertheless well organized and fully regulated, ”defended a spokesperson for the Torshavn government.
Ancestral tradition in the Faroe Islands, the "grind" or "grindadrap" consists, by encircling them, in cornering with boats a school of small cetaceans in a bay.
They then fall into the hands of fishermen who remain ashore, who kill them with knives.
These are usually pilot dolphins, also called pilot whales.
But on Sunday, 1,423 white-sided dolphins, which are also authorized for hunting, were caught in this way in a fjord near Skala, in the center of the archipelago.
Record catch
"We don't usually hunt these mammals, there are usually a few in the hunt, but we don't normally kill so many of them," said a local public television reporter. KVF, Hallur av Rana.
According to him, never has such an important catch been made in the archipelago.
By 2020, around 600 cetaceans had been killed.
Photos showing more than a thousand bloodied cetaceans on the beach drew widespread criticism.
“It seems quite extreme and it took a long time to kill them all when it is usually quite fast,” added Hallur av Rana, noting that 53% of the population of the archipelago was opposed to fishing for this species but that the Faroese had no intention of giving up the grind.
Described as a “barbaric practice” by the environmental NGO Sea Sheperd, the “grind” is presented as a sustainable hunting system by the Faroese authorities.
The product of this fishery is not marketed but used for its meat.
According to local estimates, there are around 100,000 pilot whales in the waters around the archipelago, which has a population of around 50,000.
