Photo: Sea Shepherd Global / Courtesy
In the Faroe Islands 1 were killed, 428 white-sided dolphins the 12 of September as part of a local tradition on the coast of Skálafjörður. The environmental organization Sea Shepherd classified what happened as “a brutal massacre poorly managed” in a statement .
Be Shepherd added that the mammals were cornered with boats and jet skis and then killed. They also indicated that what happened on 14 September “ is possibly the largest single hunt of cetaceans ever recorded in the world “.
As indicated by the group, several locals reported that the massacre broke several laws of the Faroe Islands , one of them was that the foreman did not authorize hunting and that several of the participants did not have a license to kill dolphins, a mandatory requirement to be part of the local tradition.
The islands Faroe are an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark .
“Many of the dolphins were run over by motor boats, essentially by propellers, which would have resulted in a slow and painful death for the dolphins. mammals “, reads the statement.
T Annual whaling is a custom hundreds of years on the island, but generally involves pilot whales, which are more numerous. However, for years this practice has been denounced by various organizations that defend the conservation of the oceans around the world, such as Sea Shepherd.
“As long as it was just for food, I have been supportive. But this recent capture that was this weekend, I am against how it was, “he told CNN Kristian Petersen, from 41 years.
On the other hand, Faroese government spokesman Páll Nolsøe also told CNN that the hunt had been authorized by the local foreman and that no laws were broken regarding the hunting of dolphins.
According to Sea Shepherd, the meat of the pilot whales is distributed to the community for free. However, the group estimates that the exaggerated number of dolphins killed exceeds the demand for meat from these mammals by the inhabitants, which could cause many of them to be killed in vain, since the rest that cannot be consumed would be lost. .
For its part, the organization of Whales and Whaling of the Islands Faroe has encouraged the hunting of cetaceans for years claiming the annual murder of 800 does not seriously impact the population of these living beings that surround the 800 one thousand specimens worldwide, according to their estimates.
“ Taking into account the times when we find ourselves, with a global pandemic and the world paralyzed, it is absolutely frightening to see an attack on the nature of this stopover in the Faroe Islands “, concluded Captain Alex Cornelissen, Executive Director of Sea Shepherd Global.