Where’s the harm in killing a few dolphins or whales?

All the photos in this article were taken during the most recent grindadráp in Leynar by our volunteers on the ground and our ambassador Palli justesen.

Moving around in the aftermath of a grindadráp in the Faroe Islands, we frequently hear locals explaining the grind and the nation’s relationship with long-finned pilot whales to tourists in these affluent islands, located just 200 miles off the coast of Scotland.

“Heavily regulated”, “well recorded and documented”, “we have a team of scientists who study these animals to ensure what we eat is sustainable”, “it’s free food”.

It’s a great sales pitch and surprisingly many tourists seem to completely accept it whilst failing to question the statements they’re hearing. For some this may be politeness but others can be heard afterwards ‘explaining’ it to friends and family.

So let’s break it down a bit.

Heavily regulated

The Faroese have laws about what animals may be killed and the bays in which they can be driven into by the boats, the procedure that should be carried out to first paralyse the dolphins (pilot whales are dolphins), how they should be bled out and how death should be confirmed.

So are these rules followed? Sure, some of them are. The animals that are killed and the bays in which that may be done – those rules are followed. But the rest – not so much. 

At this latest grind, we saw scenes similar to those seen at many before. Animals that were paralysed by the spinal lance but then left without being cut by a knife. Animals that should have had the blood vessels on either side of their spine severed (to speed up death) but nearly get decapitated instead. Animals that get stuck on rocks, left struggling until someone can be spared to go kill them. And checking for death??? Can’t remember the last time we actually saw anyone check. If an animal’s visibly thrashing it’s tail in the air, they may revisit… but those animals who’ve been paralysed are not routinely checked. 

Well recorded and documented

The Faroese have lots of records - Official records of all pilot whale hunts have been kept since 1584. That year four pilot whales were killed on the 24th June. Four years later, 115 pilot whale were killed at Skálafjørður and 11 years after that, 90 were killed at Klaksvík. 

We’ll put aside the massive difference in the numbers killed when this was a traditional activity, supporting the survival of a young nation - compared to the killing of today which is undertaken at an industrial scale.

But importantly, the figures are not accurate. A few numbers missed from the record nearly 500 years ago, that’s no big deal. But the figures from the modern day are, at their best, misleading. At their worst, simply inaccurate.

The first thing to get straight is that the figure recorded as taken after each grind is not the same as the number killed… it’s the number taken for food. 

An animal that’s felt to be unfit for human consumption – not counted. Animals so young they’re simply thrown in the bin – no counted. Unborn calves thrown in the bin or left in-situ in their dead mother – not counted. Animals that lay submerged and are retrieved later the next day – not counted. 

That’s a lot of deaths that don’t count to the Faroese.

But it’s even worse than that. Let’s revisit the most recent grindadráp at Leynar with an official death toll of 246. This grind wiped out a mature pod of long-finned pilot whales, including a large number of pregnant females and whilst that’s horrific, we’ve already established that fetuses don’t count. Only numbered animals count. So the highest number that should have been recorded on any animal is 246. But that was not the case, with animals numbered in the 250s, 260s, 270s, 280s and 290s were all documented.

We asked a number of folk who were participating in the butchery about this discrepancy and were met with shrugged shoulders and responses along the line of ‘I wasn’t there, nothing to do with me’.

So how much can we trust that grindadráps are well recorded and documented? 

Let’s break down the grindadráp at Leynar a bit more. The pod was first estimated at 100, then 200. Then there were 246 killed by the record. Or was it nearly 300 as per the numbering? 

Afterwards, 311 people registered to say they had participated on the beach. Yet the locals themselves say this figure is inaccurate, with many of those having registered simply turning up at the beach to watch. But this is the figure that will be recorded as helping with the slaughter.

Which may explain why those animals at either end of the beach waited so long to die – not enough people for the number of animals they drove onto the beach to kill. The official record states that all animals were killed within 15 minutes – and many were dead within that time. But not all of them. Including those animals at the far ends of the bay we saw the killing continue for over 27 minutes. That’s pretty quick compared to some of the grinds we’ve documented in the past but it’s not 15 minutes.

What is the point of maintaining records if the only part of the record that is truly accurate is the date?

We have a team of scientists who study these animals to ensure what we eat is sustainable

Like the two previous statements, there’s an element of truth. There are indeed scientists whose work includes producing a scientifically robust estimate of the number of long-finned pilot whales in the North Atlantic, as well as other species of cetacean. 

There also exists an organisation called NAMMCO. This organisation’s primary purpose is to justify the continued hunting of marine mammals. Coincidentally it produces the estimates of how many long-finned pilot whales are in the North Atlantic, which the Faroese base their statement of sustainability upon. The following text is taken directly from the NAMMCO website: 

The Faroese drive fishery is considered sustainable, although the last comprehensive assessment of the stock dates back to 1997 (NAMMCO 1998b). In 2012, a partial assessment concluded that sustaining an annual catch of 678 animals (the average annual catch for the 1997–2011 period) required a target population of 50,000–80,000 pilot whales. The population sustaining the catch is estimated to be over 100,000 whales (NAMMCO 2013).

The 2018 IUCN Red List report for the species notes that the grindadráp “has not resulted in any detectable declines in abundance” but also notes that “the species remains data-poor in much of its range”, that as recently as 2008, the species was considered data deficient (i.e. they don’t know how many animals there were) and that the current population trend is unknown. 

In other words, there is no firm evidence to confirm whether the take of pilot whales in Faroes is or is not sustainable, plus the data that is held is out of date and doesn’t reflect or consider the changing pressures on our ocean. 

The Faroese also catch, tag and release a number of animals each year. These satellite tags can tell much about where a tagged animal goes, the temperature of the ocean, the depths the animals dive to - transmitting data when an animal surfaces. Many of these tags stop functioning fairly swiftly and it’s generally unclear whether this is due to technical faults or because animals have failed to recover from the brutal and invasive nature of the handling and tagging process that we witness in the Faroes. Importantly, what the tags don’t provide is any assistance in estimating the population.  

Finally, before we tackle the question of free food, please take a moment to consider this. The UN defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This is not a statement about solely meeting the needs of humans, it also applies to the other species we share this world with. Every pod that is eliminated in the Faroes wipes out a section of a family tree, removing multiple generations and preventing the existence of future generations. That is not sustainable. 

Free food

Thought by many Faroese to be the most compelling argument of all. Dolphins (although they often refer to them as whales) are a free source of food on the doorstep and it should be exploited. 

Those of you who are reading this article are likely already familiar with the fact that the food is deemed unfit (by Faroes authorities) for human consumption due to heavy levels of contamination carried in the flesh and particularly the blubber of long-finned pilot whales. As well as advising many groups of the population to avoid consumption entirely, Faroese authorities also suggest limits in consumption amongst the wider population – a bit like the doctor advises limits in consuming alcohol. Although it’s notable that grind or spik (as the meat and blubber is referred to) that’s sold in supermarkets doesn’t come with a health warning and the pollutants in dolphin meat accumulate rather than passing from the body. 

So why is the thought of free food so compelling? 

Is it because this is a nation that is struggling to feed itself? Absolutely not – supermarkets are brimming over with food and a grindadráp doesn’t see a drop in the number of supermarket visitors over the following weeks. 

Is it because the Faroese are a nation with extreme levels of poverty? Again no. Whilst the cost of living within the Faroes is high, this is matched by high income levels. There are of course still different levels of affluence but Almannaverkið (welfare system) provides financial support to the most vulnerable in Faroese society – families with young children, those who are long term sick or disabled and the elderly. The same groups of people who are expressly advised to avoid eating dolphins.

More likely, this desire for free food steps from a culture that has evolved to exploit natural resources to the maximum. Perhaps understandable back in 1584 but no longer relevant in this otherwise modern society that has evolved to embrace Nordic style, comfortable living and international travel.

Others suggest that grind meat is desirable because it has less food miles attached to it compared to food in the supermarket. However it is far from having a low carbon footprint… A fair amount of carbon is emitted by boats taking part, people driving to the beach to participate, lorries moving carcasses to neighbouring villages etc.

Most importantly however, local supermarkets don’t reduce the amount of food they import because there is a grind. Ferries delivering foreign foods don’t stop sailing. There is no reduction in the nation’s carbon footprint and more likely there is increased food waste as old grind is thrown out of home freezers to make space for the new meat. 

However, is the food truly free? There are a number of unquantified impacts from the grindadráp: the effect of removing entire pods from the wider population of long-finned pilot whales; the influence on the ocean ecosystem of removing this keystone species; the localised consequences of dumping such a large number of contaminated carcasses in one location. 

However we do know that removing top predators can result in unbalanced food webs and the potential collapse of fisheries over time, that dolphins and whales play a key part in the carbon cycle, stimulating phytoplankton growth and reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, that this species, along with many others, will be vulnerable to changing prey patterns as a result of ocean warming and acidification and needs to exist in sufficient numbers that it has the time to adapt and evolve.

The grindadráp is not a source of free food – it’s just that the cost is being paid for by other nations and species, rather than the Faroese.

Final thoughts

If eating dolphins (whether long-finned pilot whales or other species) is sustainable, if it provides food for the poorest of Faroese households and all the regulations are followed and meticulous notes taken… does that make it ok to drive them onto the beach in their hundreds for killing? 

These animals have lived a free life in the North Atlantic, although it’s not an easy life – as evidenced by the scars and injuries we see on the dolphins when they’re laid out on the quayside. A stark contrast with some of the factory farming methods used by some on our planet but does having a free life make it more acceptable to kill them? 

The herding of the dolphins by powerboats, which can take many hours, is incredibly stressful. When the animals are stranded on the beach, the sound of their desperate cries to other members of the pod rent the air over the sound of wind, waves and even the shouts of humans. Their eventual stillness is paralysis, not death. They are conscious as the knife slices through their flesh. They feel their blood seeping out as they eventually start to lose consciousness and die. 

This level of suffering over such a long period would not be tolerated in any other setting and there is no justification for tolerating it in the Faroes either.

How you can help

The majority of dolphin pods are spotted by Faroese fisherman who are legally required to report the pod to the authorities in order that the dolphins may be killed. 

To play your part in ending the grind, we ask that you:

1. Sign our pledge to go #FaroesFree at www.faroesfree.org  

2. Boycott Faroese tourism – avoid going on holiday there until the killing stops and don’t book cruises that stop at the islands.

3. Refuse to purchase Faroese fish. If the product doesn’t say exactly where it comes from, refuse to buy it!

4. Sign the petition asking the UK to cancel the free trade agreement with the Faroe Islands: https://tinyurl.com/faroespetition 

5. Support the work of CPWF UK and our campaigns to end the deliberate killing of whales, dolphins and seals : https://donorbox.org/cpwf-uk-monthly-donations