The traditional cetacean hunt, grindadráp, continues in the Faroe Islands. In a single day, almost 100 pilot whales were hunted and killed in a bay that turned red, as documented on the ground by Sea Shepherd.
Four hours of pursuit, twelve minutes of slaughter, 98 pilot whales killed. This is the toll of the traditional cetacean hunt – known as grindadráp – that took place on 27 August in the bay of Vestmanna in the Faroe Islands, an archipelago scattered across the Atlantic Ocean that belongs to Denmark. The slaughter was documented by the British branch of Sea Shepherd, the organisation that has been fighting for years for ocean conservation and for an end to this traditional but brutal practice.
The account was reported by a member of Sea Shepherd's Operation Bloody Fjords team who was on the island and, as soon as she heard that the hunt was under way, made her way to the scene. "The hunts can take place at any time, in any of the 26 designated bays in the Faroe Islands," explained captain Paul Watson, the organisation's founder. "There is no hunting season, no quota, there is a lack of regulation. Every member of the pod (of pilot whales or dolphins) is killed, including pregnant mothers and calves. No one is spared."
As you walk towards the beach of the massacre, you hope the pod of cetaceans manages to escape. On the beach you are surrounded by people preparing for the slaughter. People pulling out ropes and nets full of hooks, people hanging knives from their belts. Families with children of all ages begin to arrive and you wait and hope, wait and hope.Tina, Sea Shepherd
The hunt begins at sea, where for hours the vessels encircle the pod of cetaceans, chase them and drive them towards the bay, where they will have no way out.
Suddenly you see the boats arrive, herding a family of pilot whales. You begin to hear the blows and the shouts, the wall of sound the hunters create to move the pod towards the beach. You hear the exhausted pilot whales breathing, you hear the desperate puff of air they emit.Tina, Sea Shepherd
Once trapped in the shallow water at the shore, the slaughter begins. "And so, it starts. People run into the water, pilot whales thrash in panic as they are caught and dragged onto the beach. People running from pilot whale to pilot whale to deliver the final fatal blow with the spinal lance before someone else cuts their throat. Many pilot whales do not die instantly but bleed out in the shallow water, sometimes thrashing their tails. Then, it is over. An entire family of pilot whales has been wiped out in less than 15 minutes."
You are surrounded by laughter, shouts, commotion and splashing as the water beneath your feet turns red with the blood of these magnificent innocent souls.Tina, Sea Shepherd
After the massacre, the carcasses are laid out on the beach and the meat is taken from them. What remains of their bodies is then loaded onto a truck and brutally dumped into the ocean.
On an isolated cliff, the truck stops. Using the claw of a crane, the carcasses are unloaded and thrown from the cliff. One by one, they find their end in an underwater grave. It is over, they are all dead. An entire family was wiped out before our eyes.Tina, Sea Shepherd
The slaughter at Vestmanna is the eleventh hunt of the year, bringing the total number of cetaceans killed in 2019 to 600, according to Sea Shepherd's data. The organisation also reports that over the past ten years, from 2009 to 2018, the grindadráp in the Faroe Islands has caused the killing of 7,744 individuals from five different cetacean species.
This type of hunting activity is a thousand-year-old tradition dating back to the first settlements on the island. For centuries, the hunt guaranteed the survival of the native population. For this reason the hunt known as grindadráp is still permitted and unregulated because it has been declared non-commercial, even though the meat of these cetaceans is nonetheless sold in supermarkets and considered a delicacy in restaurants. Over the years, however, people's habits have changed, as have their means of subsistence, making this practice an anachronism.
Your mind is still trying to process what your eyes have seen. You know you will never forget those sounds, the blood and the smell. They will stay with you, making you even more determined to do whatever it takes to put an end to a barbaric, unnecessary and senseless practice.Tina, Sea Shepherd