Faroe Islands whale slaughter
The 'Taiji' of the Atlantic.
The Faroe Islands are some small isolated islands that belong to Denmark (not Scotland) in the North Atlantic. These islands are half way between Iceland and the Shetland islands.
Each year, in these Islands, the locals kill pilot whales and some other small cetaceans.
The method used is to some extent similar to the one used in Taiji, Japan to get the dolphins and small whales into shallow waters: Fishermen and others use speed boats to chase and drive the whales into a bay. This chase can take a while and then when the frightened whales arrive in low water, the slaughter starts. The water then turns red with blood and the sight of dying whales. Each day of this hunt, the Faroese kill about 100 pilot whales.
This slaughter has been done for hundreds of years and it is highly celebrated among the locals. Although the Islands are a protectorate of Denmark, they have their own government and set of laws regarding the pilot whale hunt. The Faroe Islands have a Home Rule and thereby own competence over their resources. Denmark has no say or influence on whether they catch pilot whales or not.
As in Japan, there is not a need any more to kill these cetaceans for subsistence reasons and often they have more than they can eat. This meat as all the cetaceans' meat, it is highly toxic and contains hazardous levels of mercury cancer-causing PCBs and heavy metals.
The IWC (International Whaling Commission) doesn't deal with this annual slaughter. For years IWC NGO's have been trying to convince the IWC to protect not only the cetacean large species, but also the small whales.
Good news:
In the past, every year around 2,000 whales were driven ashore and were brutally slaughtered. Since the 80's, the mentality in the Faroe Islands started to change and now about 200 pilot whales and some other small cetacean species (which include the harbour porpoise, Atlantic white side dolphin, the Atlantic white beaked dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin), are slaughtered there, meaning that the kill has dropped at about a 90%. This rate of about 200 pilot whales killed a year, began after the year 2000.
From August 2007 to January 2009 no pilot whales were taken. This year, two takes took place in remote places of Faroe Islands, killing about 200 pilot whales.
The Faroe Islands are going in the right direction now. Some recent reports mention that small whale groups are arriving and that the locals and the school children went out on boats to watch the whales!
NOTE: So it is important to mention that several petitions are circulating in internet since 2008, urging people to sign against this slaughter. These petitions have pictures of the 70's and 80's, the information is outdated and often the information is wrong: some people claim the Faroe Islands belongs to Scotland, while others claim this is a dolphin drive!
Adding pressure on these islands now to stop this killing can have an opposite effect, as they are strongly political rooted people who believe that outsiders should not decide what they can or can't do. So even if in your heart you are tempted to start an internet chain petition on this issue, please don't.
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