Whale Massacre in the Faroe Islands

The zoologist Jordi Casamitjana gives an overview of the massacre of pilot whales and dolphins that happens every year in the Faroe Islands.

I spent some time in Denmark.

I have not been to any other Scandinavian country, but I stayed for a while in Denmark over 30 years ago. It was there, while I was sitting in one of the major squares of Copenhagen, not far from where the little mermaid statue is, that I decided to emigrate to the UK.

I kind of liked the country, but at the time I had no knowledge of one Danish problem which might have made me think twice before considering Denmark as a potential home. I already knew that the Norwegians, their fellow Scandinavians, were one of the few remaining nations that still openly engaged in whaling, but I did not know Denmark was another. Most of you may not know either, as they are hardly ever included in lists of whaling countries. They should be, because they openly hunt whales and dolphins every year — and not just a few, but over 1000 annually. The reason you may never have heard about this is that they do not hunt big whales and export their flesh commercially, just smaller ones and dolphins of several species, and they do not do it on their mainland, but in a territory they “own”, but which is very far away (geographically and culturally).

The Faroe (or Faeroe) Islands are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. However, they are located at a similar distance from Iceland, Norway and the UK, quite far from Denmark itself. Like happens to the UK, the temperatures are moderate despite its latitude because the Gulf Stream warms the surrounding waters. The people living there, who speak Faroese, a language closely related to Icelandic, have a very bad custom: grindadráp.

This is the brutal mass hunting of pilot whales, a very cruel tradition which has tainted the Danish reputation for decades. They kill the whales to use their skin, fat, and flesh, consuming them locally. Despite being very unhealthy, they eat the meat and blubber of these social mammals in one of their traditional dishes called tvøst og spik. In this article, I will summarise what this (literally) bloody cruel activity is about.

Who are the Pilot Whales?

Pilot whales are cetaceans of the parvorder Odontocetes (toothed whales that include dolphins, porpoises, orcas, and all other whales with teeth) belonging to the genus Globicephala. Currently, there are only two species alive, the long-finned pilot whale (G. melas) and the short-finned pilot whale (G. macrorhynchus), which look very similar, but the former is larger. The length of the pectoral flippers relative to total body length and the number of teeth is what was used to differentiate them, but recent research has shown that these traits overlap in both species.

The long-finned pilot whales live in colder waters and the short-finned pilot whales live in tropical and subtropical waters. Pilot whales are called whales, but they are technically oceanic dolphins, the second largest after the orcas (other odontocetes that are also called whales, as for killer whales).

Adult long-finned pilot whales reach approximately 6.5 m in length, with males being one metre longer than females.  Long-finned females weigh up to 1,300 kg and males up to 2,300 kg, while short-finned pilot whales have adult females reaching 5.5 m while males reach 7.2 m (weighing up to 3,200 kg).

Pilot whales are mostly dark grey, brown, or black, but have some light areas behind the dorsal fin, which is set forward on the back and sweeps backwards. They are easily told apart from other dolphins by their head, with a distinctive large, bulbous melon (a mass of adipose tissue found in the foreheads of all toothed whales that focuses and modulates vocalisations and acts as a sound lens for communication and echolocation). Male long-finned pilot whales have more circular melons than females. Pilot whales emit clicks to locate food, and whistles and burst pulses to talk to each other. When in stressful situations, they produce “shrills” which are variations of their whistle.

All pilot whales are very social and may remain with their birth pod all their lives. Adult females tend to outnumber adult males in the pod, but there are whales of various age groups. The whales collectively hunt for mostly squid, but also cod, turbot, mackerel, Atlantic herring, hake, greater Argentine, blue whiting, and spiny dogfish. They can dive to depths of 600 metres, but most dives are to a depth of 30–60 metres, and they can swim very fast at those depths, possibly because of their high metabolism (but this gives them shorter diving periods than some other marine mammals).

Their pods may be very large (100 individuals or more) and sometimes they seem to be going in the direction a leading whale wants to go (hence the name pilot whale as they seem to be “piloted” by a leader whale). Both species are loosely polygynous (one male lives and mates with multiple females but each female only mates with a few males) as both males and females remain in their mother’s pod for life and there is no male competition for females. Pilot whales have one of the longest birth intervals of cetaceans, giving birth once every three to five years. The calf nurses for 36–42 months. Females of short-finned pilot whales continue to look after calves after their menopause, something that is rare outside primates. They are generally nomadic, but some populations stay all year round in places such as Hawaii and parts of California.

Unfortunately, pilot whales often get stranded on beaches (a problem that whalers exploit) but it is not known exactly why this happens. Some say that damage to the inner ear from noise pollution in the ocean is the cause. They live about 45 years in males and 60 years in females for both species.

In 1993, a study estimated that there were a total of 780,000 short and long-finned pilot whales in the North Atlantic. The American Cetacean Society (ACS) estimated that there may be one million long-finned and 200,000 short-finned pilot whales on the planet.

The Grind

The term Grindadráp (Grind for short) is the Faroese term derived from grindhvalur, which means pilot whales, and dráp, which means killing, so there is no doubt about what this activity entails. This is not new. It has been happening for centuries, as there is archaeological evidence of whaling in the form of pilot whale bones found in household remains from around 1200 CE. Records show that there were already laws regulating this whale hunting in 1298. However, one would expect that the practice would have died out by now. Instead, in 1907, the Danish governor and sheriff produced the first draft of whaling regulations for the Danish authorities in Copenhagen, and in 1932, the first modern whaling legislation was introduced. Whale hunting has been regulated ever since and is considered a legal activity on the islands.

The hunting happens sometimes from June to October with a method called “driving” which only takes place when weather conditions are right. The first thing that will have to happen on good hunting days is to spot a pilot whale pod close to the shore. (mainly from the long-finned pilot whale species, Globicephala melas, which is the one that lives around the islands, where it feeds on squid, greater Argentine and blue whiting). When that happens, boats head towards the whales and drive them ashore at one of the 30 historic whale hunt locations, where they will be killed en masse leaving the sea and sand tainted with blood.

The drive works by surrounding the pilot whales with a wide semicircle of boats, and then stones attached to lines are thrown into the water behind the pilot whales to prevent their escape. The animals are placed under immense stress as they are chased for several hours to shore. Once the whales are beached on land, they are unable to escape, so they are at the mercy of the people waiting for them on the beaches with all sorts of weapons. When the order is given, the pilot whales receive a single deep cut through the dorsal area made with a special whaling knife called mønustingari, which has the effect of severing the spinal cord (if done properly) and paralysing the animals. Once the whales are immobile, their necks are cut open with another knife (grindaknívur) so that as much blood as possible can run from the whales (which they say helps to preserve the meat) finally killing them. Sea Shepherd has recorded instances where the killing of individual whales or dolphins has taken over 2 minutes and, in the worst cases, up to 8 minutes. In addition to the stress of the chase and the killing, the whales will witness members of their pod killed in front of their eyes, adding more suffering to their ordeal.

Traditionally, any whale that did not end up stranded ashore was stabbed in the blubber with a sharp hook and then pulled ashore, but since 1993, a blunt gaff called blásturongul was created to hold the beached whales steady by their blowholes and pull them ashore. Spears and harpoons have been banned from the hunt since 1985. Since 2013, it has only been legal to kill the whales if they are ashore or stuck on the seabed, and since 2017 only the men waiting on the beaches with blásturkrókur, mønustingari and grindaknívur are permitted to kill the whales (it is no longer allowed to harpoon the whales while at sea). What makes it especially macabre is that the killing happens on beaches in full view of many spectators, despite how horrendously graphic it is.

Calves and unborn babies are also killed, destroying entire families in one day. Entire pods are killed, despite pilot whales being protected under various regulations within the European Union (which Denmark is part of). Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 on protecting animals at the time of killing requires that animals be spared any avoidable pain, distress, or suffering during their killing.

The largest catch of pilot whales in a single season in recent decades was 1,203 individuals in 2017, but since 2000 the average has been 670 animals. In 2023, the whale hunting season started in the Faroe Islands in May, and by June 24 more than 500 animals had already been killed.

On 4^th May the first Grind of 2024 was called, where 40 pilot whales were hunted, dragged ashore, and killed in the town of Klaksvik. On 1^st June, over 200 pilot whales were killed close to the town of Hvannasund.

Other Cetaceans Killed in the Faroe Islands

Other species of cetaceans the Faroese are allowed to hunt are the Atlantic white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus), the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), the white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris), and the harbour porpoise (Phocaena phocaena). Some of these may be caught at the same time as the pilot whales as a kind of bycatch, while others may be targeted if spotted during the whaling season.

Since 2000 the average number of white-sided dolphins caught a year has been 298. In 2022, the government of the Faroe Islands agreed to limit the number of dolphins caught during its annual pilot whale massacre. After a campaign that gathered more than 1.3 million signatures, the Faroese government announced it would only allow killing 500 white-sided dolphins alongside the traditional long-finned pilot whales killed at an average of around 700 annually.

This measure was taken because in 2021, 1,500 dolphins were massacred together with the pilot whales on Skalabotnur beach in Eysturoy, which exceeded the total for the past 14 years combined. The limit was intended to last only two years, while the Scientific Committee of NAMMCO, the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission, looked into the sustainable catches of white-sided dolphins.

This limit was very tokenistic because, apart from only affecting the dolphins and not the pilot whales, since 1996 there have been only three other years where more than 500 dolphins were killed (2001, 2002, and 2006), aside from the unusually high 2021 slaughter. Since 1996, an average of 270 white-sided dolphins a year have been killed in the Faroe Islands.

Campaigning Against the Grind

There have been many campaigns trying to stop the Grind and save the whales. The Sea Shepherd Foundation, and now the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (which he recently created after he was ousted from the former, as he explained to me in a recent interview) have been leading such campaigns for many years.

The vegan Captain Paul Watson has been involved in fighting against the Faroese whale hunt since the 1980s, but he stepped up his efforts in 2014 when Sea Shepherd launched “Operation GrindStop”. Activists patrolled the Faroe waters attempting to protect the whales and dolphins chased by the islanders. The next year they did the same with “Operation Sleppið Grindini”, which led to several arrests. The Faroese Court found five activists from Sea Shepherd guilty, initially fining them from 5,000 DKK to 35,000 DKK, while Sea Shepherd Global was fined 75,000 DKK (some of these fines were changed on appeal).

On 7^th July 2023, the John Paul DeJoria ship from the Captain Paul Watson Foundation arrived in the area outside of the Faroese 12-mile territorial limit while respecting the request to not enter Faroese territorial waters until a “Grind” was called, which happened on 9^th July. As a consequence, the John Paul DeJoria went toward the location of the slaughter near Torshavn. Unfortunately, it could not stop the killing of 78 pilot whales in front of the eyes of hundreds of cruise ship passengers onboard the vessel Ambition. Captain Paul Watson said, “The crew of the John Paul DeJoria was respectful of the request to not enter Faroese waters but the request is secondary to the necessity of saving the lives of intelligent, self-aware sentient beings.”

There is now a coalition called Stop the Grind (STG) that is formed by animal welfare, animal rights, and conservation organisations, such as Sea Shepherd, Shared Planet, Born Free, People’s Trust For Endangered Species, Blue Planet Society, British Divers Marine Rescue, Viva!, The Vegan Kind, Marine Connection, Marine Mammal Care Centre, Shark Guardian, Dolphin Freedom UK, Peta Germany, Mr Biboo, Animal Defenders International, One Voice for the Animals, Orca Conservancy,  Kyma Sea Conservation, Society For Dolphin Conservation Germany, Wtf: Where’s The Fish, The Dolphin’s Voice Organisation, and Deutsche Stiftung Meeresschutz (Dsm).

In addition to animal welfare and conservation issues regarding the whales and dolphins, the STG campaign also argues that the activity should stop for the sake of the Faroese.  On their website, we can read:

“The health authorities of the Faroe Islands have advised the public to stop eating pilot whales. Research on the consumption of whale meat has revealed that it can cause serious health issues such as impaired immunity and high blood pressure in children. It has also been linked to foetal neural development damage, increased rates of Parkinson’s disease, circulatory problems, and even infertility in adults. In 2008, Pál Weihe and Høgni Debes Joensen, who were the Faroe Islands chief medical officers at that time, stated that pilot whale meat and blubber contain excessive amounts of mercury, PCBs, and DDT derivatives that make it unsafe for human consumption. The Faroese Food and Veterinary Authority has recommended that adults limit their consumption of whale meat and blubber to just one meal per month. Furthermore, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and those planning pregnancy are advised not to consume any whale meat at all.”

Some campaigns have been based on lobbying for changes in international conventions that exempt the Grind from standard species protection legislation. For instance, the whales and dolphins are protected under the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, Northeast Atlantic, Irish and North Seas (ASCOBANS, 1991) but it does not apply to the Faroe Islands. The Bonn Convention (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, 1979) also protects them, but the Faroe Islands are exempted by agreement with Denmark.

Whaling is wrong at all possible levels regardless of which species are involved, which countries practise it, and what is the purpose of the hunt. Despite several attempts to ban whaling globally, and partial successes at a national and international level, there are far too many exemptions and “rogue” countries that seem stuck in the 18^th century when whaling was still popular. Just in June 2024, the government of Iceland authorised the hunting of more than 100 fin whales, despite a temporary suspension last year due to recognition of the cruelty of whale hunting by a government-commissioned report. Following Japan, Iceland is the second country in the world to allow fin whaling to resume this year. Norway has been one of the other “rogue” countries obsessed with killing cetaceans.

Denmark should leave this terrible club behind.