09/15/2021 10:07 AM
Clarín.com
International
Updated 09/15/2021 10:07
The slaughter of 1,428 dolphins
, part of a centuries-old tradition in which aquatic mammals are herded into beach waters where they are slaughtered for their meat and fat, reignited a debate in the small Faroe Islands of Denmark.
Hunting in the North Atlantic islands is non-commercial and
licensed, but environmental activists criticize it for its cruelty.
Some Faroese people who defend the hunt say that this time it will attract unwanted attention because it was larger than the previous ones and apparently it was not organized.
Heri Petersen, head of a group that propels pilot whales ashore on Eysturoy Island, where the killing took place on Saturday, said he was not informed of the event, from which he "strongly distanced himself."
Activists criticize the cruelty.
Photo: Sea Shepherd.
He told the news website in.fo.
that
there were too many dolphins and too few people on the beach to euthanize them.
The horrific images showing the carcasses of mammals on the coast of Skalabotnur in Eysturoy - disseminated by the Sea Shepherd association - made the rounds on social networks, unleashing the ire of environmentalists, but not only them.
More than 1,400 Atlantic dolphins were slaughtered.
Photo: Sea Shepherd.
Since the 1980s, Sea Shepherd activists have been traveling to the Faroe Islands to try to stop the carnage and to disseminate photos and videos of the massacre during which
the animals are subjected to long agony before dying.
But this year, they report, the number of dead animals was impressive.
The local government of the Faroe Islands defended the death of these more than 1,400 dolphins in a single day during this traditional hunt, despite the unrest it arouses, even in this Nordic archipelago.
"There is no doubt that whaling in the Faroe Islands is a dramatic spectacle for those not used to hunting and killing mammals. However, these hunts are well organized and fully regulated," a Torshavn government spokesman told AFP.
Islanders kill about 1,000 marine mammals annually, according to data from the Faroe Islands.
Last year there were just 35 white-sided dolphins.
Olavur Sjurdarberg, president of the Pilot Whale Hunting Association, fears that the discussion will reignite and cast a negative light on the ancient tradition of the 18 rocky islands situated midway between Iceland and Scotland.
They are a semi-autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark.
According to local authorities, dolphins are not in danger of extinction.
Photo: Sea Shepherd.
White-sided dolphins and pilot whales are not endangered species.
The "grind" or "grindadrap",
an ancient tradition in the Faroe Islands, Danish autonomous territory in the North Sea, consists of surrounding them, cornering with boats a school of small cetaceans in a bay.
Thus they are within the reach of fishermen who have remained on land and who kill them with knives.
According to local media, the reaction of the population was "one of bewilderment and shock at the extraordinarily high number" of dead dolphins.
They surround, corner and kill hundreds of dolphins for fun.
Photo: Sea Shepherd.
"It makes me sick to see these things," said one commenter on the Facebook page of local television Kringvarp Føroya, while another described the massacre as "completely terrible" and added: "I am ashamed to be Faroese."
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