Over 1,428 Atlantic dolphins killed. The traditional Grindadrp hunt consists of dragging the cetaceans ashore and then slaughtering them with knives: this year impressive numbers. Indignation and complaints
Horror and anger in the Faroe Islands, Denmark, where they were last weekend over 1,428 dolphins slaughtered
Atlantic (Leucopleurus acutus), during a traditional hunt that has been taking place in the country for centuries, the Grindadrp. The terrible images showing the corpses of mammals on the shoreline of Skalabotnur in Eysturoy – disseminated by the Sea Shepherd association – the blood-red sea have made the rounds of social networks, unleashing the wrath of environmentalists, but not only. Since the 1980s, Sea Shepherd activists have been traveling to the Faroe Islands to try to stop the slaughter and disseminate photos and videos of the massacre during which the animals are subjected to a long agony before death. But this year, they report, the numbers of animals killed have been staggering.
This barbaric practice has a name, it is called Grindadrp, and consists in dragging the mammals, above all globicefali e lagenorinchi (the Atlantic dolphins), ashore and then slaughter them with knives. Every year, the BBC reports, they come slaughtered about 600 whales (pilot whales) and 35-40 dolphins. Then the unprecedented Sunday massacre. As confirmed by Rob Read, Sea Shepherd’s chief of operations al Times: We believe this is the largest single hunt for dolphins or pilot whales in the history of the Faroe Islands, the second largest state of 1,200 pilot whales in 1940 – and possibly the largest whale hunt ever recorded worldwide.
It was a big mistake, admitted the president of the Whaling Association of the Islands, Olavur Sjurdarberg. Heri Petersen, who chairs the local Grind hunting association in the bay where the killing took place, explained that too many dolphins have been herded into the bay and too few were the people waiting on the beach to kill them, and this prolonged their agony: The dolphins remained on the beach squirming too long before being killed.
According to local media, the reaction of the population was one of bewilderment and shock due to the extraordinarily large number of dolphins killed.
I feel nauseous to see these things, said one commenter on local TV’s Facebook page Kringvarp Froya, while another described the massacre as completely terrible and added: I am embarrassed to be Faroese.
Meat from the catch is traditionally shared among participants and then given to local villagers, but the Danish newspaper Extra Bladet has collected testimonies from some locals that there was no way the locals would want to consume so much dolphin meat: end up that most dolphins will be thrown in the garbage or in a hole in the ground.
However, a survey carried out by public television Kringvarp Foroya also revealed that while 50% of people opposed to dolphin hunting, 80% in favor of whale hunting.
September 15, 2021 (change September 17, 2021 | 08:51)
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