Monday, June 8, 2015

Faroese Enjoy Family Bloodbath

The Faroe Island's first grindadráp (or whale slaughter) of 2015 kicked off in fine form yesterday morning, on the island of Vágar in the NW of the Faroe Islands archipelago.
Officials say 154 individual pilot whales were in the slaughtered pod, making this one of the bloodiest grinds in at least two years.
The Faroese Fisheries Patrol vessel Brimil located the large pod south of Vágar. Over the next 4-5hrs, as many as 25 hunting boats drove the pod, finally herding them on to the beach of Miðvágur where the killing took place.
The slaughter occurred just two weeks before Sea Shepherd crews are due to arrive in the Faroe Islands, for the start of the organisation's 2015 Faroe Islands pilot whale defence campaign, Operation Sleppid Grindini.
CEO of SS Global, Alex Cornelissen: "The beaches of the Faroe Islands are once again red with the blood of hundreds of slaughtered pilot whales. Without the presence of SS, shining a spotlight on these ferocious shores, this massacre will continue unabated."
For hundreds of years, the Faroese have been herding migrating pilot whales from the sea into shallow water and slaughtering them. The slaughter, known by the local term 'grindadráp' or 'grind', wipes-out entire family groups of whales and dolphins at one time.
Operation Sleppid Grindini will be SS's 6th.campaign in the Faroe Islands. Led by SS ships Bob Barker, Sam Simon and Brigitte Bardot, and supported by a dedicated land team, the campaign marks SS's strongest at-sea presence in the region to date.

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