Pilot Whales Brutally Slaughtered Annually in the Faroe Islands
September 8, 2008 · Print This Article
Residents of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous province of Denmark, slaughter and eat pilot whales every year, as these photos graphically depict. The Faroese are descendents of Vikings, and pilot whales have been a central part of their diet for more than 1,000 years. They crowd these intelligent animals into a bay and kill them, cutting the dorsal area through to the spinal cord. In the process, their main arteries get cut. As you can see, the waters in the bay turn bright red from all the blood.
Ironically, this practice, called grindadráp, is diminishing the population of 5,000 islanders. Many of them get sick and die from high mercury levels in the whales. Mentally retarded children are reportedly being born at alarmingly high rates.
To be clear, the whales are not endangered and animal rights organizations have largely backed off due to the fact that this process is such an integral part of Faroese culture, and because the Faroese aren’t involved in commercial whaling. That doesn’t make the pictures any easier to look at, though.
PBS has a video about the mercury problem and this culture’s deeply held beliefs called ‘The Faroe Islands – Message from the Sea’, viewable here.
Link [PBS] + [Wikipedia]
- Stop Whaling in Denmark!
- End whale/dolphin bloodbath in Danish Faeroe Islands
- Save the Whales Again, by Kaekae =)
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[...] head over to Earth First’s blog and check it out. The pictures are hard to look at but a good example of how some tradition needs to be chucked [...]
Tasty!
Fck, ‘m gng t b thr nxt ssn. Wldn’t mss t fr th wrld. Fck ff. h h, thrchjrk.cm
Horrible - but what can be done? If the Faroese are not involved in commercial whaling, if the animals are not endangered, it seems nothing can be done until mercury consumption and inbreeding drive this culture to its demise.
i wonder if they traditionally killed this many at a time?
I know that it is tradition, but it is kind of irresponsible to stick to a tradition that is killing the population.
From an animal rights standpoint it is kind of hard to judge though…they are consuming the animals, the whales are not endangered, it looks brutal because of all the blood, but that is what happens in a beef slaughterhouse too…we just don’t see it.
Robert
http://www.greenfixes.blogspot.com
Anyone know if they grill these things or just eat them raw? My past taste of whale wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Just saying….
This is an island who is under homegoverment… since 1948… So as a Dane myself, please leave us out of this one… Apparently the havent evovled like the rest of us…
People of Denmark have never been proud of theses savages in the north atlantic… And I personally hate it when I see stuff like this…
Calling this tradition is as stupid as calling tradition to hunt for witches, hitting schoolkids in a classroom or forbidding women to walk alone in the streets.
Some traditions are better left back in the dark ages. This is really brutal.
Traditions… Respect!!!.
I wish these people die. I wish they get throats sliced … THEN they wil know how it feels.
I wish someone would throw them in the ocean and then we could harpoon them and then herd them into shore and cut their spinal cords and then roast them slowly over a fire and pour mint source over their tender flesh at dinner. mmmmmmmmmmmm kentucky fried human.
It’s disheartening to see how brutal humans can be -especially to animals, noting that we were given dominion over them - to care for them, not to slaughter them. A practice that’s been done for years doesnt mean it’s right and should be continued.
Came across this petition site to stop this barbaric act..
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/end-whale-dolphin-slaughter-in-the-faroe-islands?page=87
Who cares about the outcome of my actions, as long it me feel and even more important look good.
People without the smallest clue about the cultures, traditions or people being hurt by their actions, are drawn by the image boost a membership of a banning organisation could give them. It is so easy and some even get a mental erection by picking or beating on minorities.
Hitler did it, Stalin did it, they did it in former Yugoslavia and they are currently doing it in Rwanda, China and many other places around the world.
95% of you are blind followers; it makes you feel strong to be part of the banning team. It is easy not having to understand or investigate, just jump on the wagon and start pointing fingers, banning and destroying, without the furthest idea about the damage you are causing.
In the seventies and up through the 80’s the same kind of people were banning the killing of seals, not only the industrialists, but any hunting of seals.
You destroyed a tribe of people who for thousands of years, had been living in accordance with nature. The Inuit’s in Greenland couldn’t any more sell the skin from the adult seals. They were, through this action forced to seek in to the cities, and are now, exactly like the American native Indians, being destroyed by alcohol and drugs.
Congratulation to you all you from back then, you successfully partly destroyed a population, an incredible value was los. But did you save the seals? No - today we know, that the Inuit’s had become a part of the ecosystem and there is not one more seal today in Greenland than there were back then. The CO2 the people in your network produces, are killing more seals and polar bears, than the Inuit’s ever did.
Now the Faroese are on line for the killing of pilot whales. But have any of you, just the smallest clue about how many pilot whales there are in our oceans.
700.000 to 800.000 thousands, and alone in the North Atlantic more than 100.000.
They have been hunted for decades and the few hundreds hunted and eaten by the Faroese are not making any difference to this population.
But why do they do it, you might ask? Or you might even think that it is cruel.
Well it does look awful - I agree to that, but no different from what it would look like, if we slaughtered a goat, a sheep, cow or a pig in the water.
The Faroese has besides the few sheep no meat production. They have no pigs, veal or beef; standing locked behind bars their whole life, being fed up with hormones, made ready for the knife of people who couldn’t care less. But I don’t see you raising awareness, trying to help these more than 100.000.000 animals living a sad life.
The Faroese people live in accordance with nature, more than any other civilised population in the world.
These people are 99,9% dependant on what the ocean brings to them, and still today the whale meat is a important part of many of these peoples nutrition, but equally as important part of their culture.
Something that is hard to understand living the Jet-Set, spending most you time building your image. Hard to understand if you have never lost a family member to the sea, when he was earning to pay school and food for the winter, hard to understand not having to work to put food on your children’s plate, but only work your way to the next Gucci bag.
So shame on you for judging…
Judge your self first - 95% of you are meat eaters!
Judge your self when you are wearing a leather bag or leather jacket, it is made of Veal skin, from one of those poor little calf’s, living tied to a bar.
The killing of whales is done only by trained people, people who know what they are doing, which stands in strong contrast to you.
Once judgement and banning, gets a part of building once image, it turns to the ugliest side of man kind.
Why don’t you spend your energy on Nepal, the rainforest or the capitalist’s destruction of the ocean or natural resources? Stop picking on a few people, living like they have done, long before the words fashion, trend and image were used the first time.
So before ever again raising you voice banning others, stop polluting, stop using, and stop wasting. Take responsibility for your own actions, before asking others to change.
Thank you for reading…
Regards
A Faroese guy
Are these people nuts? It’s totally not acceptable by using excuses of traditions…If my traditions allow to get lot of children, can i rape every lady on the street just to get baby? This stupid practice should be abolished and those people should be shot to death..
Please wake up and use the brain before doing it…
“Tradition” in some parts of South Asia consists of burying alive women who refuse arranged marriages. Of course the whole village comes to the scene and enjoy the show… Would Aki the “faroese guy” take it as an alternative, when mercury level in pilot whales gets too high ? After all it is also a genuine tradition.
Die hard tradition of bullfighting in Spain and other latin countries at least gives a slight chance to the bull and the bullfighter somehow risks his life… Why the faroese people don’t go and try to cut the whales to pieces in the deep sea instead? That would be a lot more exciting!!!
It seems , that according to the news of the area that many mentally retarded babies are being born in that area due to the mercury and the whale meat , so it would not be illogical to conclude that the residents of this area do have some sort of mental instability as a result of this heinous inhumane activity.
Come on folks , what ever happened to the famous “do unto others”?
Disgusting.
The people eat the whale they slaughter so its not just senseless murder. But regardless, i think there should be a more honourable way to put these beautiful and intelligent creatures to the sword. Maybe they could change the way the slaughtering is carried out. Being a descendant of vikings doesn’t mean one should act like one.
Maybe they could drop a giant hair dryer in the water and shock the whales to death.
No one should be allowed to kill for the tradition! And call himself human!!!
They should be ashamed and baned to walk the rest of the earth!
But since there is a high mercury level, will you still consume the meat? If not, the whales just die for nothing!! Killing is not a tradition to be preserve.
“Maybe they could drop a giant hair dryer in the water and shock the whales to death.”
Haha
It looks bad, but if doesn’t effwect their numbers, if they’re not endagered, what’s the big deal. Do those of you who are against this eat meat? Chicken? Eggs? Cheese? Drink Milk? All of this comes from animals that are caged, slaughtered etc. Those of you who are stating that these people should be shot, have their throats cut etc should take a hard look at yourself in the mirror, unless you are vegan you have no right to criticise and are adding to the hypocracy that surrounds this subject.
If you can’t kill it, don’t eat it!
It’s shame for humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!We live in 21st century but are actually as PRIMITIVE as thousands of years ago. The saddest thing is we all will look at this e-mail but nothing will actually change. Or maybe I’m wrong and there is anything we ALL reading this article could do about this slaughtery?
It is true that it looks terrible. And it is true that when you see blood then everyone goes whaaa whaaa about killings. And its also true what the Faroese guy said. So all in all I believe people must maybe start to look at the bigger picture here. I’m also not keen on killings of any kind but would spend my energy more on solving other problems than carry on about how terrible people are
If you think this is inhuman you have to see how traditional killings are done in South Africa. And we can’t do anything about it because it’s part of their culture. And most times (when they have to do a sangoma ritual) the animal suffers so much it dies from shock and they don’t even eat the animal. They only drink their blood. THAT my friends are brutal and there are little children watching and growing up with the idea that it is normal.
Oh why don’t we make killing human babies a tradition? The worlds overpopulating and I’m sure if we make it a tradition it will be okay!
If whales weren’t dissappearing so fast I really wouldn’t mind this as much but the fact that they are going onto the brink of extinction and the fact that there are waaaaaaaaaaay toooo many humans out there it just sort of sickens me. I’m sorry if it offends your “tradition” but you could find a new one or just talk about the days of ol’ like most folk do. We have other sources of food now we don’t need to eat whales anymore. You could make hunting rabbits a tradition there’s plenty of them and they can reproduce much faster than a whale!
Cows really wouldn’t be around inless we did eat them anyway. Do I agree with methods of raising and killing them? Hell no. This is why I drink only organic milk.
There’s a balance in this world, humans are tipping the scales. This shall lead us to our demise. The world is only what you see through your own World View. It’s too bad many of us can’t open our minds to other cultures, figuring out a way to live with eachother. I still stand on no killing the whales though.
I suppose if I could I would rather live in a world were if you had to eat meat you could only hunt something that could kill you back. This would give my prey a fair advantage. This would even the odds.