Whaling In The Faroe Islands

ORIGINS

The drive has been practiced since at least the tenth century and records exist in part since 1584 , and continuously from 1709 ^{{Link without Title}} - the longest period of time for statistics existing for any wild animal harvest in the world. The drive remains controversial as animal rights groups accuse the drive of being unacceptably cruel. Such is the importance of the drive in Faroese Culture that the Faroese word for sighting a group of whales is the same as that as for the drive.

A THREAT TO THE WHALE POPULATION?

Debate rages about the whether the hunt represents a significant threat to Pilot Whale populations. The size of the North-east Atlantic population itself is a subject of debate. The figure accepted by the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee is the 778,000 animals obtained by the North Atlantic Sightings Survey in 1995. Those in favour of whaling, such as the say it is an over-estimate. If the estimate is accepted, the average kill of the last ten years (950 animals per year), then the cull represents a little more than 0.1% of the population.

THE KILLING PROCESS

, Faroe Islands , June 28th 2004.]]
Because the Pilot Whales are killed on the beach by cutting their main arteries, the surrounding sea tends to turn a spectacular bloody red. This vivid imagery is often used by anti-whaling groups in their campaigns against the drive.

Once the whales have been driven close to the shore of a bay by boats forming a semi-circle behind them, the whaling foreman drops a rope into the water weighted by stones. With this, the whales are forced onto the beach. It is not permitted to take whales on the ocean-side of this rope. Most of the whales beach themselves. Those that remain unbeached have historically been stabbed in the blubber with a sharp hook, called a gaff, and then pulled to the shore. Anti-whaling groups such as Greenpeace and the WDCS claim that the partial blocking and irritation of the airway causes pain and panic in the animal. Responding to allegations of cruelty, the whalers have begun using blunt gaffs and, instead of stabbing the whale, putting the hook inside the blow-hole of the whale.

Once ashore the Pilot While is killed by cutting the dorsal area through to the spinal cord. The length of time it takes an animal to die is also the subject of much debate.

SEE ALSO

Whaling

REFERENCES

# Taken from "An Introduction to the History of Whaling" published by the WDCS
# Quoted in ''Pilot Whales'' (pp902-903) in ''The Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals'' (2002).
# The Faroese government quotes an average of 950 animals per year in the years 1990-1999
# See also this description from the Faroese government . The WDCS describes the operation of driving the whales onto the beach as "cruel".
# These dates are given by the Faroese government, which maintains the records .

General references:
: Information page from the High North Alliance (in favour of whaling)
: Report on the hunt from NAMMCO
: Information page from the Campaign Whale campaign (against whaling)
: CNN report on the drive

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Whaling In The Faroe Islands