Waters turn red after hundreds of pilot whales slaughtered for gory annual ‘tradition’ – World News

By admin On Jul 10, 2021

These horrific images show the waters off the Faroe Islands turned blood red as hundreds of pilot whales are killed.

Hunters in the remote archipelago have cornered more than 200 sea mammals so far this year as part of a gory annual tradition, it is claimed.

The hunt was caught on camera by conservation group Sea Shepherd and shows whalers driving them on the beach to be killed for meat.

The gruesome festival is known as grindadráp or “grind”, which dates back to Viking times.

Sea Shepherd said 175 pilot whales were murdered, including pregnant females, earlier this year.

Last week it claimed a pod of up to 100 were driven into a “killing bay” by boats. The Faroese hunt on average 600 pilot whales a year.

Grindadrap is a centuries-old tradition in the Faroe Islands
(Image: seashepherd.org)

Sea Shepherd’s Robert Read said: “The grindadráp is a barbaric relic of a bygone age, which is not needed to feed anyone on the islands.”

According to the group, 539 long finned pilot whales, 35 Atlantic white sided dolphins and 11 northern bottlenose whales were killed in 2020 alone.

Grindadrap is a centuries-old tradition in the Faroe Islands, a self-governing island territory of Denmark, and has likely been practiced since it was first settled by Norsemen in the 9th and 10th centuries. — Sea Shepherd said meat is not needed for the island and called the festival ‘barbaric’
(Image: seashepherd.org)

Faroese government officials say there are 380,000 pilot wales in the North Atlantic, with 100,000 around the Faroes.

It said: “Both the meat and blubber have long been a part of the national diet. Sustainable catches of this abundant species are shared largely without the exchange of money among the participants in a hunt and residents of the district where they are landed.”

In one sickening show of defiance in May, the head of a killed pilot whale was impaled on a giant fish hook sculpture in the town of Hvannasund.

Haunting images show the waters off the Faroe Islands turned red
(Image: seashepherd.org)

Each year Sea Shepherd sends crews to observe the killings, with sickening pictures showing the sea turn red as whales and dolphins are hacked to death in the shallow water.

Pods of whales and dolphins are guided by boats and jetskis towards the shore, where groups including children are waiting with knives ready to kill them.

It can take upwards of 20 minutes for animals to die, and whales and dolphins endure the horror of seeing their relatives killed in front of them.