On a Sunday evening in September, a super-pod of 1428 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins was sighted near the Faroe Islands.  After being  driven by speed boats and jet-skis for several hours, and for about 45 km, the pod was trapped in the shallow water at Skálabotnur beach.  There, every one of them was killed.  As with all such massacres, the killing was done in plain sight, with the community (including small children) on hand to watch the proceedings.  

This activity was approved by the local authorities.  No quotas were exceeded and no laws were broken.  Though such hunts are regulated, they are considered non-commercial, and are organized at the community level as an activity meant to provide needed food to that community.  Often they’re completely spontaneous, kicked off when someone spots a pod and reports it to the authorities.

There was nothing unusual about what took place on that day.  Only the sheer scale of the massacre brought this particular hunt to the world’s attention, with the story appearing on CNN, BBC and all the major news services.  

1,428 killed in one day.  Compare that to the 1,829 which represents the entire quota to be killed or captured this year in the notorious Taiji hunts.  Even pro-whalers seemed a bit sick to their stomachs.  1,428.  Seems excessive even to someone who is OK with murdering a fellow sentient being for food.  After all, who on Earth could use all that meat?

In fact, whale carcasses are often dumped back into the ocean or found in dumpsters across the islands.  In part because of health warnings regarding the high mercury content in the meat, fewer people consume it than once did.  Yet the pace of the killing has not abated.  It’s obvious that the Grindadráp, as this hunt is known locally, is not about food.  It has nothing at all to do with feeding the poor starving Faroese people.  The islands are prosperous, and there are no such people.  It’s about bloodlust, possibly with an element of rite-of-passage for neurotic Faroese men looking to prove their manhood.  Maybe a belief that dolphins are a competitor to the fishing industry that is all-important to the Islands’ exports.  In any event, literally everything that swims by the islands must be killed.  The killing itself is the point.  

Such a massacre of any kind of animal would be bad enough.  But whales and dolphins aren’t any animal.  They are among the most capable of experiencing complex emotions, including suffering and grief for lost loved ones.  Cetaceans are intelligent animals that demonstrate language and complex social behaviors.   Faroese people consider the Grindadráp an important part of their cultural heritage.  But from the point of view of veterinary science this traditional killing method is considered to be one in which the animals are exposed to extreme levels of distress.  The key point is that it’s performed on fully conscious animals that are entirely aware of their circumstances.  

Watching your relatives cut open and killed all around you is not an experience that would be muted in any way that would make it qualitatively different from how we humans would experience it.

Let’s consider some of the utter nonsense that is typically voiced by pro-whaling advocates in defense of this practice.

The Grindadráp is important to food security in the Faroe Islands.  We’ve already discussed that, but in case you’re still not convinced, and you suspect that killing such a large number was unintentional and widely recognized as unnecessary, consider this.  A mere 10 days later, another hunt took place in the Faroe Islands, taking the lives of 53 pilot whales.  The market for whale meat is so huge that 10 days later this additional meat was required to meet demand?  No reasonable person could believe that.

It’s less harmful, or at least no different, than killing any other animal for food.  Let’s hear from a few of these lunatics…

Sjurdur Skaale, a Danish MP for the Faroe Islands, put it this way:  “From an animal welfare point of view, it’s a good way of killing meat – far better than keeping cows and pigs imprisoned.” 

Hans Jacob Hermansen, the former chairman of the Faroe Islands’ association that runs the Grind, told the Associated Press that the hunt was no different “from killing cattle or anything else”.  

Or consider this from a conversation with a fellow named Rasmussen on the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy, released earlier this year:

So, I don’t feel like I’m a bad person.

If somebody wants to say, “Yeah, you’re a bad person for killing a whale.”

Uh, I would rather kill one whale than 2,000 chickens.

That’s about the same amount of meat.

Uh, so if the world wants to take 2,000 lives, and we are taking one, you’re welcome.

And at that point, I feel like I’m a better person than many other people that are thinking about, “Yeah, we had salmon for dinner last night.”

Yeah?

Four people, salmon, that means two, three salmons killed.

Do you really feel good about yourself killing two salmons for eating dinner?

Uh, I can follow the thoughts that people are saying, “If you want to eat, don’t kill anything.”

Like, just eating vegetables, and fruits, and stuff like that.

Okay, so let me say that I have enormous respect for people who make food choices that don’t result in having to kill any animals, but let’s not let ourselves get distracted by what is really an entirely different topic.

Are we seriously going to draw a moral equivalency between killing a chicken, or a fish, and killing a whale?  What Mr. Rasmussen doesn’t want you to notice in that incredibly stupid argument is that chickens (or salmon), though they deserve to be treated humanely, are not creatures in possession of social intelligence and complex cognition on a par with our own.   A chicken and a whale are not the same thing.  It shouldn’t be necessary to state something so obvious.  

The killing of pilot whales is sustainable.  Much is made of this argument on various websites supporting the Grind.  Supporters say whaling is a sustainable way of gathering food from nature and an important part of their cultural identity.  In fact, Sea Shepherd and others are entirely correct when they counter that the slaughter is cruel and unnecessary.  As to whether the total number of whales killed in a typical year falls well within the numbers that populations in the North Sea can bear, I don’t hear experts in marine biology rushing to make that case.  And truthfully, even if they were, so what?  Again, we’re not talking about commodities here.  Assets to be harvested from the ocean.  We’re talking about the taking of individuals with complex thoughts, feelings and self-awareness.

The killing methods employed by the Faroese are humane.  This argument is nothing short of offensive.  

Hunters must have an official training certificate that qualifies them to kill the animals before they can take part.  They’re taught to use a specially designed lance to cut the spinal cord of the whale or dolphin before the neck is cut.  MP Skaale, (quoted above) defends the killing as “humane” if done correctly.  Using this method, it should take “less than a second to kill a whale”.  

The idea that you can kill a whale in less than a second is frankly insane.  You’re going to cut through its neck from the top, sever its spinal cord, and have the animal die a painless death in less than a second!  No one in their right mind can believe that, and I can assure you that the people doing the killing don’t believe it either.  They see the reality up close.  And even if this particular piece of nonsense were true – that the killing itself is quick and painless – consider what the entire process is like.  According to Sea Shepherd, “Grindadráp hunts can turn into drawn-out, often disorganised massacres.  The pilot whales and dolphins can be killed over long periods in front of their relatives while beached on sand, rocks or just struggling in shallow water.”  Could any person possessing even the tiniest capacity for empathy attach the term “humane” to this?

There is no doubt about the commitment of Faroese authorities, and indeed the majority of the Faroese people themselves, to maintain these hunts for as long as the North Sea continues to provide whales and dolphins to slaughter.  

To demonstrate their determination and resolve on this question…  Did you know that if you were to go on a whale watching excursion near the Faroe Islands (assuming such a thing can even exist), if you spot a pod and don’t report your sighting to the Faroese authorities that organize the Grinds, you will face up to two years in prison?  This is the law of the land here in Faroe, part of the Kingdom of Denmark and the E.U., in 2021.  

There is no amount of persuasion that can change their minds.  Except perhaps for one.  Boycott travel, tourism and commercial ties.  No preferential trade agreements.  No Faroese salmon or other fish products in your shopping cart.  Don’t board cruise ships that make stops there.  No economic co-operation of any kind.  That they might understand.

And if you happen to be a star performer, maybe don’t do shows there?  C’mon James Blunt – you acted with full awareness of what you were doing.  Instead of speaking for those who can’t speak for themselves, you’ve just delivered your tacit approval of horrific, ongoing injustice.  What, seriously, is wrong with you?  

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Dani, Canadian Cetacean Alliance