1428 Dolphins Slaughtered in the Faroe Islands Sunday Night

📁 Archive Document — Historical Record

This article was first published when our charity's original name/branding as 'Sea Shepherd UK' prior to our name change on 18th May 2023 following the removal of Captain Paul Watson from Sea Shepherd entities worldwide (with the exception of the UK, France and Brazil).

Captain Paul Watson remains a member of our Board, and our charity continues to uphold its founding principles of non-violent direct action marine conservation.

This article and its contents are the property of the 'Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK' and forms part of our 21 year history.

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On Sunday night, 12th September, a super-pod of 1,428 Atlantic white-sided dolphins was driven for many hours and for around 45 km by speed boats and jet skis into the shallow water at Skálabotnur beach in the Danish Faroe Islands, where every single one of them was killed.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK believes this to be the largest single hunt of dolphins or pilot whales in Faroese history (the next largest being 1,200 pilot whales back in 1940), and possibly the largest single hunt of cetaceans ever recorded worldwide.

While opposition to the grind has been active since the early 1980s, this latest dolphin massacre was so brutal and badly mishandled that it is no surprise the hunt is being criticised in the Faroese media, and even by many outspoken pro-whalers and politicians in the Faroe Islands.

According to locals who shared videos and photos with our team, this hunt broke several Faroese laws regulating the grind. First, the grind foreman for the district was never informed, and therefore never authorised the hunt. Instead, it was another district's foreman who called the grind without the proper authority.

Second, many participants of the hunt had no licence, which is required in the Faroe Islands, since it involves specific training in how to quickly kill the pilot whales and dolphins. However, footage shows many of the dolphins were still alive and moving even after being thrown onshore with the rest of their dead pod.

Normally, meat from a grindadráp is shared amongst the participants and any remainder among the locals in the district where the hunt takes place. However, there is more dolphin meat from this hunt than anyone wants to take, so the dolphins are being offered to other districts in the hopes of not having to dump it.

The Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet published interviews with locals, whose full names are redacted for their families' safety, explaining how many Faroese are furious with what happened. "My guess is that most of the dolphins will be thrown in the trash or in a hole in the ground," said one. "We should have quotas per district, and we should not kill dolphins," said another. One local has asked Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to investigate the matter, saying, "If she expresses her criticism, then it will also be easier for the locals who want this barbaric tradition stopped." Others express worry that the international press showing the slaughtered dolphins put their exports at risk — the Faroe Islands export salmon to the UK, US and Russia.

Even the local Faroese press, usually reluctant to publish anything against the hunt, quotes Hans Jacob Hermansen, former chairman of the grind, saying the killing was unnecessary.

To get a sense of scale: this single hunt of 1,428 Atlantic white-sided dolphins at Skálabotnur approaches the Japanese government quota for the entire six-month dolphin killing and capture season at the infamous 'Cove' at Taiji in Japan — and significantly exceeds the numbers actually killed in any recent years of the Taiji killing season.

This cruel and unnecessary hunt was carried out towards the end of the summer, when the Faroese had already killed 615 long-finned pilot whales, bringing the total number of cetaceans killed in 2021 in the Faroe Islands to a shocking 2,043.

Each year, more and more locals in the Faroe Islands are opposed to the grind, but are unable to speak out publicly for fear of reprisals. The Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK will continue to support their efforts to bring an end to the ongoing slaughter of pilot whales and other dolphins.