Fewer dolphins will be killed in the Faroe Islands this year

Government of the Faroe Islands put a limit Number of dolphins killed this year during the controversial traditional hunt for cetaceans: a maximum of 500. The decision comes after 1,423 people were killed in one day in 2021, much higher than the average for the past twenty years, which attracted particularly harsh criticism from organizations defending animal rights and beyond. : A petition signed by about 1.3 million people (more than twice the population of the Faroe Islands) called on the local government to ban the hunting of cetaceans altogether.

The Faroe Islands (Fur er with the Danish alphabet) are an archipelago in the north of the Atlantic Ocean: they lie north of Scotland, west of southern Norway, and southeast of Iceland, and although related to Denmark, they are almost autonomous. All aspects of domestic politics – like Greenland. Traditional hunting of cetaceans.grinddroppy“In Faroese, it is one of the things for which they are best known in the world. Every year, in the summer, groups of cetaceans are encircled by hunter boats and pushed towards the shallow waters of a bay There they are killed, killed and killed on the beach by poachers on land. These are mostly related to dolphins species leucopurus acutus And pilot whale,

There grinddroppy It is approved and regulated by the local authorities, who claim that the Faroese have been feeding the cetaceans for centuries, and is an important event for the local people, who gather to witness the slaughter of the animal and then split the meat. Huh.

According to Faroese government figures for this century, an average of 260 dolphins are killed every year grinddroppy And, given that according to scientific estimates, a population of 80 thousand lives around the Faroe Islands leucopurus acutusAnnual hunting of up to 825 individuals will not endanger the survival of the species in the area. However, last year’s killings were described as “extraordinarily numerous” by the Faroese government, which acknowledged that “the hunting aspects were not satisfactory”.

According to animal rights organization Sea Shepherd, the 2021 hunt was “brutal and wasteful”, among other things, because it was carried out by people who did not have a license to participate and therefore had to learn ways to kill cetaceans quickly. had no idea . Even among members of Faroese hunting associations, the incident was criticized as the dolphins were left in agony for too long before being killed.

The limit of 500 dolphins set by the Faroese government will be valid for this year and the next. In 2024, the new elevation will be assessed taking into account suggestions from the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO), an international organization dedicated to the study and conservation of marine mammals in the North Atlantic, of which the Faroe reaches Greenland. Together they are part. , Iceland and Norway: The Faroese government has asked the institution’s scientific commission to update its guidelines on how sustainable dolphin hunting can be practiced.

It was also announced that the government would monitor the methods by which the exercise grinddroppy And it will verify that the dolphins have been killed “as quickly and efficiently as possible.” NAMMCO recommends the development of specific hunting weapons for dolphins, as for pilot whales, in order to kill the animals quickly, without leaving them in pain: a prototype has been built that has yet to be tested.