Yesterday two pilots were whaling, killing a total of 446 animals. These two catches bring the numbers Grindrap This year in the fifth.
It’s an ancient tradition—sometimes controversial. Boats pursue a small school of cetaceans in a bay and surround it. Then the hunters who remained on land go into the water up to their waists and kill the animals with knives. Shocking images of dead animals and a bloody sea spark outrage among animal rights activists every year.
In 2014, the NGO Sea Shepherd managed to disrupt that year’s season. They denounced a regulation allowing Danish military vessels to intervene to prevent the practice in Faroese waters. Islanders who advocate stalking believe that foreign media and NGOs do not respect their culture.
In 2022, there will be another 500 dolphin slaughter cap, after an “unusually large” catch of 1,423. The limit is in place for two years. The government also acknowledged that the catch did not go according to plan. A petition to stop the stalking has been signed more than 1.3 million times worldwide.
The eighteen islands lie between Iceland, Norway and Scotland.
