Last Sunday, more than 1,400 dolphins were put to death in the Faroe Islands, in a fjord in the center of the archipelago, in the name of an ancestral tradition, the “Grindadráp” or “grind”.
This is a traditional hunting technique, which takes place every year in the Faroe Islands, sometimes several times a year. It consists of surrounding with boats marine mammals, mainly pilot dolphins, also called pilot whales, but also exceptionally white-sided dolphins, and pushing them back to the shore, where they are slaughtered by stabbed fishermen. .
Pilot dolphin meat is one of the only sources of protein available in the Faroe Islands, and their hunting has enabled local people to survive there for hundreds of years. Grind is now practiced more for its cultural aspect than for nutritional necessity.
If these hunts cause the stir and indignation of animal protection associations, they nevertheless remain completely legal and supervised by the Faroese authorities. The product of this hunt is not marketed, but the meat is distributed to the local population. “There is no doubt that the whale hunt in the Faroe Islands is a dramatic sight for those unaccustomed to hunting and killing mammals. These hunts are nevertheless well organized and fully regulated ”, justified a government spokesperson to AFP on Tuesday.
The Sea Shepherd association has strongly denounced this hunt and estimates that last Sunday’s grind reached records, with 1,428 dolphins killed. According to BBC, around 600 pilot whales are killed each year, and only a few white-sided dolphins (35 in 2020, 10 in 2019). The president of the Faroese Whalers Association admitted to the British media that the latter grind had been “excessive”. “When the group was found, they (the participants, editor’s note) estimated that there were only 200 dolphins,” he explained. It was only after the killing had been carried out that the fishermen would have realized the very large number of dolphins.