Dolphin Drive Hunting - Faroe Islands

Faroe Islands

On the Faroe Islands mainly Pilot Whales are killed by drive hunts for their meat. Other species are also killed on rare occasion such as the Northern bottlenose whale and Atlantic White-sided Dolphin. The Northern bottlenose whale mainly gets killed when it by accident swims too close to the beach and can't get away again, and therefor they die on the beach. When the locals find them stranded or nearly stranded on the beach, they kill them and share the meat to all the villagers. The stranding of the Northern bottlenose whale mainly happens in two villages in the northern part of Suðuroy: Hvalba and Sandvík. It is believed that it happens because of a navigation problem of the whale, because there are isthmuses on these places, where the distance between the east and west coasts are short, around one kilometer or so. And for some reason it seems like the bottlenose whale want to take a short cut through what it thinks is a sound, and too late it discovers, that is on shallow ground and is unable to turn around again. It happened on 30 August 2012, when two Northern bottlenose whales swam ashore to the gorge Sigmundsgjógv in Sandvík. Two men who were working on the harbour noticed these whales, and some time later they had either died by themselves or got killed by the locals and then cut up for food for the people of Sandvík and Hvalba (Hvalba municipality). The hunt of the pilot whale is known by the locals as the Grindadráp. There are no fixed hunting seasons. As soon as a pod close enough to land is spotted, fishermen set out to begin the hunt. The animals are driven onto the beach with boats, blocking off the way to the ocean. When on the beach, most of them get stuck. Those that have remained too far in the water are dragged onto the beach by putting a hook in their blowhole. When on land, they are killed by cutting down to the major arteries and spinal cord at the neck. The time it takes for a whale to die varies from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the cut. When the fishermen fail to beach the animals altogether, they are let free again.

The pilot whale stock in the eastern and central North Atlantic is estimated to number 778,000. About a thousand pilot whales are killed this way each year on the Faroe Islands together with usually a few dozen up to a few hundred animals belonging to other small cetaceans species, but numbers vary greatly per year. The amount of Pilot Whales killed each year is not believed to be a threat to the sustainability of the population, but the brutal appearance of the hunt has resulted in international criticism especially from animal welfare organisations.

As in Japan, here too the meat is contaminated with mercury and cadmium, causing a health risk for those frequently eating it. Again, especially children and pregnant women are at risk. In November 2008, the New Scientist reported in an article that research done on the Faroe Islands resulted in two chief medical officers recommending against the consumption of Pilot Whale meat, considering it to be too toxic. In 2008 the local authorities recommended to no longer eat Pilot Whale meat due to the contamination, and this has resulted in reduced consumption, according to a senior Faroese health official.