At a meeting on Tuesday morning in Torshavn, the Faroese local government discussed for the first time the future of traditional and controversial dolphin hunting.
The Faroese local government announced on Tuesday that it had started discussions on the future of a traditional and controversial dolphin hunt, with a decision expected in the coming weeks. A petition of nearly 1.3 million signatures calling for a ban on these summer dolphin massacres was also submitted on the eve of this meeting to the government of the autonomous Danish archipelago, the cabinet of the Danish government confirmed to AFP. Prime Minister and cetacean defense associations.
At a meeting on Tuesday morning in Torshavn, the Faroese local government discussed for the first time the conclusions of the “reassessment” requested by Prime Minister Bárdur á Steig Nielsen in September, after an exceptionally heavy toll hunt – more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins.
“It was a first meeting. No decision has been taken,” a member of the Prime Minister’s Office told AFP, saying the final decision should be made in “a few weeks”, with “several options” on Table. Ancestral tradition in the Faroes, an autonomous Danish territory in the North Sea, the “grind” or “grindadrap” consists, by encircling them, of cornering a school of marine mammals in a bay with boats. They then fall into the hands of fishermen who have remained on land, who kill them with knives.
Atrocious images
Every summer, the images routinely travel around the world and outrage animal advocates, but the practice still enjoys strong support in the Faroe Islands, where it is a reminder of how cetaceans have fed the local population for centuries. On average, some 600 cetaceans are caught each year in the Faroe Islands, but the hunt on September 12, 2021, in the deep Skala Fjord, had exploded the counters and caused the government to react.
Only captures of white-sided dolphins are subject to this reassessment, but not the practice of “Grind” in itself, with other targeted species, in particular pilot whales.
In the petition submitted to the Faroese government on Monday, led in particular by the cetacean defense NGO Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the signatories demand an end to a “cruel” practice. “Massacring more than 1,400 dolphins after leaving them to suffer crosses the boundaries of the ethical treatment of our planet’s wildlife and threatens the reputation of a community that shares a deep connection with the sea,” the text pleads.
Any reproduction prohibited