Whenever a pod of pilot whales is spotted off the coast of one of the islands: locals sail out and drive the pod towards the shore, eventually beaching them on the sand. Then villagers descend onto the beach and kill the whales en-masse, using special tools.
CATHERINE BENNETT: ‘The Faroe Islands, an archipelago in the North Atlantic, has a population of only 50,000 people. But every year the small cluster of volcanic islands comes under global scrutiny for a bloody whaling tradition called grindadráp, known locally as the grind.
It’s a practice that occurs whenever a pod of pilot whales is spotted off the coast of one of the islands: locals sail out and drive the pod towards the shore, eventually beaching them on the sand. Then villagers descend onto the beach and kill the whales en-masse, using special tools.
Activists from global marine conservation movement Sea Shepherd have conducted annual campaigns against the practice since the 1980s. Faroese authorities arrested activists in 2014 and 2015, and banned the organisation from sailing ships in Faroese waters… Sea Shepherd estimates that 399 pilot whales and 33 Atlantic white-sided dolphins have been killed through grindadráp in 2018′. SOURCE…
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