Special Action Alert - Faroe Islands

Pilot Whale Slaughter - The 'Grind'

More than 1000 long-finned pilot whales are killed in the Faroese Islands, a Danish protectorate, every year by wealthy islanders, who have no subsistence need for whale meat but to consume it as a cultural prerogative. The hunt, known as a "grind," is horrifically cruel. North Atlantic and migratory North Sea Pilot whales are driven into shore by fishing boats, then roped and hauled on until they beach themselves.

Then using long knives the fishermen kill the whales by sawing at their heads, severing their spines, and letting them bleed to death. The Faroes say that this is 'as humane as possible'. This is, of course, not true but it is 'as cheap as possible'.

Faroe Islands Declare WAR on Whales - The 'Grindadrap'

The annual hunt, known as the 'grindadrap' or 'grind' which goes on throughout summer, is defended by Faroe islanders who say it is part of their cultural heritage and is a tradition stretching back over hundreds of years. But, this year (2015) the Faroe Parliament met to formulate new Grind laws that declares war on whales.

Three NEW laws that have been enacted are:

• 1 - It is an offence not inform the police if whales are spotted.
• 2 - All equipment, vehicles, ships or any other possession can be seized if it is suspected to have been used to try to save whales' lives.
• 3 - Authorities can detain anyone for up to 12 hours on the suspicion that they are going to try and save whales.

Police and Danish Navy actively assistied the Pilot whale killers (2015)

"This year's 'Grind' in the Faroe Islands was as bloody as ever", writes Captain Paul Watson, who witnessed the slaughter of a pod of 22 pilot whales with vicious hooks and long knives.

"If Denmark wants to be considered a 'civilised' nation, it must stop its aggressive support for the cruel and barbaric tradition."

The Faroe Islands continue to encourage the barbarity of slaughtering dolphins with the full complicity of the government, the media, the police with new authoritarian 'special' laws, and now the Danish government and the Danish Navy.

"It appears that many people in the Faroes are so traditionally and morally bankrupt that they can only find identity in the bloody ritualized culture of sadistic slaughter, as if to proclaim to the entire world that they, the Faroese, require blood sacrifices to illustrate their complete lack of empathy and morality", says Captain Paul Watson.

In 2008, The Faroe Island's Chief Medical Officer announced that the long-finned Pilots that were brutally corralled, then mutilated off the shoreline, were laced with toxic levels of mercury, PCBs and DDT. The Chief Medical Officer deemed all long-finned Pilots unsafe for human consumption.

He noted that ingesting long-finned Pilots blubber or meat would result in: fetal neural damage, high blood pressure, impaired immunity in children, increased rates of Parkinson's disease and circulatory complications in both children and adults.

The world must condemn this crime against nature, and Denmark must say to these killers that as a compassionate nation such an abomination of ecological principles and common decency should be tossed upon the dustbin of history - Captain Paul Watson

The Pilot Whale

Photo: workingabroad.com

At 25 feet long, the male long-finned Pilots are amongst the largest dolphins on the globe. They are intelligent, socially complex sentient beings most worthy of our admiration and worldwide protection.

These champion divers can easily surpass a 2,000-foot dive in search of squid, octopus, cod, dogfish, hake, herring, mackerel and turbot. These days long-finned Pilots must work very hard scouring for food because the oceans are fished-out from rapacious, subsidized, prolonged human ransacking of the seas.

Like the Orca, the long-finned Pilot whale is actually a dolphin. They are very social, family animals and may travel in groups of up to a hundred with a dominant female as a leader.

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