In Denmark’s Faroe Islands, the centuries-old tradition of slaughtering whales was in full swing in early June 2019 as the waters off of Torshavn Bay were turned into a sea of deep red. Anywhere from 130-150 pilot whales and 10-20 white-sided dolphins were brutally killed in the annual mass hunt.
The summer slaughter brings the number of slaughtered sea mammals—or cetaceans—to approximately 500 as of 2019—par for the course in an old tradition dubbed Grindadráp by the local Danish community.
About 800 whales are killed annually by the people of the Faroe Islands to satisfy the historical natural diet of local residents that subsist on the meat and blubber of the sea mammals. Every whale provides many hundred kilos of meat to local residents, whose hunting exercises are communal activities where catches are shared among locals with no cash exchange, as reported by Condé Nast Traveller magazine.
The tradition is an example of residents subsisting on local wildlife rather than the capital-intensive industrial agriculture and factory farm-sourced foodstuffs that most Europeans rely on.
The practice entails boats enclosing whales that venture close to the bay, after which they’re headed toward the land where they’re beached and killed. Hooks are inserted into the blowholes of the whales to haul them onshore, after which spinal lances are used to pierce the neck and sever the spinal cord, ending all blood flow to the brain. Within seconds, the whale is dead. A pod of whales can be killed in less than ten minutes, especially since the whole community is on-hand to assist in the slaughter.
Apart from the tradition, campaigners have reacted to graphic imagery of the hunt by calling for a ban on hunting dolphins and small whales in countries where the tradition is widespread, with groups such as The Blue Planet Society starting petitions aiming to outlaw the practice in Japan and the Faroe Islands.
The whale catches are also strictly recorded and regulated by authorities, that insist that the events are not cruel and that international law allows for the practice to take place. Since 1584, approximately 2,000 whale catches have taken part in the Danish archipelago.
Public health authorities have warned that the high levels of mercury and persistent organic pollutants render the meat a health hazard and risk to the intellectual and neurological development of those that consume it. The toxic content of the meat, released by industry into the environment and subsequently ending up in the whales, might provide the most compelling argument against the continuation of the centuries-old whaling practice in Denmark.
Reference: Truth Theory
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