Dolphin Slaughter in Faroe Islands

Children watch brutal slaughter of marine mammals in Faroe Islands

On Sunday night, September 12th, 2021 a super-pod of 1428 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins was driven for many hours and for around 45 km by speed boats and jet-skis into the shallow water at Skálabotnur beach in the Danish Faroe Islands, where every single one of them was killed. Photos by Sea Shepherd.

Faroese hunters drove the terrified pod of highly intelligent, sentient marine mammals for over 25 miles to the shallow waters, where they were ruthlessly and inhumanely butchered.

School children play among corpses of butchered marine mammals.

This illegal hunt, fuelled by blood lust and ignorance, is tragic and unacceptable. Phillip's Natural World condemns the slaughter of these dolphins 

Our oceans are dying, and as finite resources and innocent marine life continues to be senselessly plundered, our planet is dying as well.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (that made most of these images) believes this to be the largest single hunt of dolphins or pilot whales in Faroese history (the next largest being 1200 pilot whales back in 1940), and is possibly the largest single hunt of cetaceans ever recorded worldwide. 
While Sea Shepherd has been fighting to stop the ‘Grind’ (what locals call this internationally condemned hunt) since the early 1980’s, this latest dolphin massacre was so brutal and badly mishandled that it is no surprise the hunt is being criticized in the Faroese media and even by many outspoken pro-whalers and politicians in the Faroe Islands. 

The Danish government is complicit in the brutal slaughter of marine mammals in the Faroe Islands.  From this image we see the islanders are willing participants as well.

According to locals who shared videos and photos with Sea Shepherd and the media, this hunt broke several Faroese laws regulating the Grind. First, the Grind foreman for the district was never informed and therefore never authorized the hunt. Instead, it was another district’s foreman who called the Grind without the proper authority. 

Second, many participants of the hunt had no license, which is required in the Faroe Islands, since it involves specific training in how to quickly kill the pilot whales and dolphins. However, footage shows many of the dolphins were still alive and moving even after being thrown onshore with the rest of their dead pod.

Third, photos show many of the dolphins had been run over by motorboats, essentially hacked by propellers, which would have resulted in a slow and painful death. According to locals, the hunt has been reported to the Faroese police for these violations.

Normally meat from a slaughter like this (they call it a grindadrap) is shared amongst the participants and any remainder among the locals in the district where the hunt takes place. However there is more dolphin meat from this hunt than anyone wants to take, so the dolphins are being offered to other districts in the hopes of not having to dump it.

Teaching a new generation of Faroes children to murder marine mammals

Boycott Faroese Salmon!

The Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet published interviews with locals, whose full names are redacted for their families’ safety, explaining how a lot of Faroese are furious with what happened. “My guess is that most of the dolphins will be thrown in the trash or in a hole in the ground,” said one. “We should have quotas per district, and we should not kill dolphins,” said another. One local has asked Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to investigate the matter, saying “If she expresses her criticism, then it will also be easier for the locals who want this barbaric tradition stopped.” Others express worry that the international press showing the slaughtered dolphins put their exports at risk (the Faroe Islands export salmon to the UK, US, and Russia).

Even the local Faroese press, usually reluctant to publish anything against the hunt, quotes Hans Jacob Hermansen, former chairman of the Grind, saying the killing was unnecessary.  Warning, the photos in the Faroese press are even worse than these, if you can imagine that.

“For such a hunt to take place in 2021 in a very wealthy European island community just 230 miles from the UK with no need or use for such a vast quantity of contaminated meat is outrageous.”

Rob Read, COO at Sea Shepherd UK

Faroe Islanders watch as fishermen brutally kill a superpod of dolphins

Express Your Outrage 

with a Letter or Email

If you would like to reach out to the Faroe Islands government directly to voice your concerns, they can be reached at:

Bárður á Steig Nielsen - Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands
Tinganes, Posting Office 64,
FO-110 Tórshavn
Faroe Islands
Phone: +298 30 60 00
Fax: +298 30 60 15
email: info@tinganes.fo

Remember an international letter requires $1.30 postage.  We wrote letters and emailed the government of Denmark and the Faroe Islands.  We asked the Queen Margrethe II of Denmark to explain the brutal murder of marine mammals.  So far, no answer from the old queen.

Shocking scale of the massacre of marine mammals in the Faroe Islands

Massive Scale of the Massacre

To get a sense of scale; this single hunt of 1428 Atlantic White Sided Dolphins at Skálabotnur approaches the Japanese government quota for the entire six-month dolphins killing/capture at the infamous ‘Cove’ at Taiji in Japan, and significantly exceeds the numbers actually killed in any recent years of the Taiji killing season.

This cruel and unnecessary hunt was carried out towards the end of the summer when the Faroese have already killed 615 long-finned pilot whales, bringing the total number of cetaceans killed in 2021 in the Faroe Islands to a shocking 2043.

For more information, statistics, and the latest news about the grind hunts, visit Sea Shepherd’s Operation Bloody Fjords website or FB page.

Support Sea Shepherd at: seashepherd.org/donate

What posses a sentient human being do do something like this?

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