The sea of blood: Water turns red as Faroe Islands carry out annual dolphin slaughter while children watch
The grindadrap, or 'grind' for short, is a 1,000-year-old Faroese custom which sees hunters encircle the animals with their fishing boats in order to drive them into a shallow bay.
The terrified animals are then beached, allowing fishermen to brutally slaughter them with knives on the shore, with locals then feasting on their meat and blubber.
Every summer, shocking images of the bloody hunt show the macabre ritual, which is strongly condemned by outraged animal rights defenders who consider the practice barbaric.
Today's practice at Leynar, Streymoy, is believed to have seen around 200 pilot whales killed.
Volunteers from the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK say some were left struggling on rocks with women helping to bring in the kill due to a lack of men for the sheer number of animals beached.
They described it as a 'disturbing scene in a high income nation' with almost as many children as adults present.
The call to the slaughter went out just as school ended, with parents apparently bringing their offspring to watch after lessons.
Rob Read of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation said: 'When children are taught to watch instead of protect, the cycle of violence continues unchecked.
'This isn't tradition - it's desensitisation. We must break the chain.'
At the same time as the massacre, King Frederik X, Queen Mary, and Princess Josephine of Denmark are on an official visit to the Faroe Islands, arriving with the royal yacht Dannebrog and engaging in traditional ceremonies in Tórshavn and Koltur.
'The juxtaposition is stark: a royal historic tour, national costumes, public speeches - and on the same day, a violent medieval maritime practice using powerboats and modern tools,' a spokesperson for the foundation added.
Each year, an average of around 700 long-finned pilot whales are caught, alongside varying numbers of Atlantic white-sided dolphins.
Female long finned pilot whales can live up to 60 years, whilst males can live up to 45 years.
Like all cetaceans - whales, dolphins and porpoises - long-finned pilot whales play a vital role in ocean ecosystems, helping to keep the oceans alive and thriving.
This is a major reason volunteers have been lobbying to end the grind - which kills hundreds of whales every year.
Since 1948, the hunt has been regulated by the Faroese authorities, required its participants to be trained, involved modern boats and communications, and been supervised by police.
The practice dates back to the ninth century, and many Faroe Islanders consider eating whales to be an important part of their history.
The Faroese also state that the hunt provides free food for their community.
But campaign groups have labelled the hunt 'barbarous' and say it is no longer just about feeding the islanders, with excess meat and blubber sold off.
The Faroe Islands are a self-governing archipelago forming part of the Kingdom of Denmark in the North Atlantic between Norway and Iceland.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
The elephant whisperer: one Thai woman's lifelong quest to protect a rescued herd
Saengduean Lek Chailert was five years old when she saw an elephant for the first time. It was in chains, lumbering past her home in rural Thailand on its way to help loggers pull trees from the forest. Back then, she saw the giant mammals like everyone else – as animals that served humans. But that changed the day she heard a scream from the forest. Chailert was 16 when she heard the terrible noise. She scrambled through the trees until she found the source: a bull elephant scrabbling in the mud as it tried and failed to drag a log out of a ditch. Every failed attempt was met with punishment from the loggers and mahout, the elephant keeper. One would fire a sling shot at the animal, another stabbed it with a knife and a third jabbed a spike into the elephant's leg. With each jab, the animal would let out a scream of pain. 'The elephant looked at me and I felt the fear and anger. I felt helpless and confused. My heart hurt a lot,' says Chailert. 'I tried everything to get the screaming to stop but I was disturbing their work, so I had to go. I kept asking 'why, why, why?' 'When I went back to my village, I could still hear the elephant when we were having dinner that night,' she says. The incident changed the direction of Chailert's life for ever. She was from a poor family – there was no electricity or school in her village – but she vowed to do something for the animals she loved. Before a ban on logging in natural forests in Thailand in 1989, elephants were a key part of the industry. In the early 20th century, there were an estimated 100,000 elephants in Thailand. Thousands were worked to death or left with severe injuries from dragging enormous trees from the rainforest to roads, where they would be transported for lumber. After the ban, many elephants were used by the country's rapidly growing tourism industry to give performances and rides. Working in a tourism agency in her early 20s, Chailert watched the change happen with horror. 'There were many backpackers at that time. Camp owners were competing with each other for tourists,' she says. 'They would train their elephants to dance, ride a motorbike, play darts or hula hoop, walk on a rope or play a harmonica. This brought more suffering to elephants.' It took Chailert a few attempts to fulfil her dream of finding a way to care for Thailand's elephants. In 1996, she sold everything she had and borrowed money to set up an elephant sanctuary. She paid $30,000 for four hectares (10 acres) of land to provide a home to nine elephants. She insisted that there would be no elephant rides or performances. Her family invested money to help but after disagreements over how to run the park, she left the project, taking the elephants with her. Then, Chailert got lucky. National Geographic was filming a documentary with the Hollywood star Meg Ryan about Thailand's wild elephants, which were estimated to number 4,000 to 4,400 by 2023; Chailert and her newly released elephants featured in it. In the US, a Texas couple, Bert and Christine Von Roemer, saw the TV programme and contacted Chailert, donating enough money to buy a 20-hectare parcel of land in the Mae Taeng district of northern Thailand, near Chiang Mai. In 2003, Elephant Nature Park was born. Today, about 120 rescue elephants are at the park, which has grown to more than 1,000 hectares, home to a small fraction of the 3,900 or so domesticated elephants in the country. The sanctuary's work has an enormous social media following on Instagram and Facebook. Elephants arrive from all over Thailand. Chailert, now 64, sometimes travels for more than 50 hours with the animals after they are rescued. 'Some arrive with huge mental issues. Some stand like a zombie; some are aggressive, they swing their head back and forth. When they arrive, we do not allow our staff to use any tools or do anything that might make them feel threatened. 'We are gentle. We have to give them our love to make them trust us. We have to be patient,' she says. New arrivals are almost always put into quarantine and slowly introduced to the herd. Over time, they are accepted. When their ears start to flap and their tails start to whirl, the elephants are happy, says Chailert. 'The priority is that every elephant has a family,' she says, showing the herd feeding in the forest on a screen. Today, the conservation scheme is funded by visitors and volunteers who pay to work on the project. But despite the success of the sanctuary, Chailert fears for the future of Asian elephants, which she believes are decreasing in Thailand, despite official figures showing a steady increase in the population. 'Throughout Asia, many people are starting to hate elephants. Human-wildlife conflict is a big problem. Many died from being shot and poisoned' she says. 'Many have lost their habitat and water sources so they have to go to golf clubs and rice fields – places that don't belong to them. So, people get angry and make the elephant into a monster. The future will depend on the government policy to resolve this,' she says.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
The elephant whisperer: one Thai woman's lifelong quest to protect a rescued herd
Saengduean Lek Chailert was five years old when she saw an elephant for the first time. It was in chains, lumbering past her home in rural Thailand on its way to help loggers pull trees from the forest. Back then, she saw the giant mammals like everyone else – as animals that served humans. But that changed the day she heard a scream from the forest. Chailert was 16 when she heard the terrible noise. She scrambled through the trees until she found the source: a bull elephant scrabbling in the mud as it tried and failed to drag a log out of a ditch. Every failed attempt was met with punishment from the loggers and mahout, the elephant keeper. One would fire a sling shot at the animal, another stabbed it with a knife and a third jabbed a spike into the elephant's leg. With each jab, the animal would let out a scream of pain. 'The elephant looked at me and I felt the fear and anger. I felt helpless and confused. My heart hurt a lot,' says Chailert. 'I tried everything to get the screaming to stop but I was disturbing their work, so I had to go. I kept asking 'why, why, why?' 'When I went back to my village, I could still hear the elephant when we were having dinner that night,' she says. The incident changed the direction of Chailert's life for ever. She was from a poor family – there was no electricity or school in her village – but she vowed to do something for the animals she loved. Before a ban on logging in natural forests in Thailand in 1989, elephants were a key part of the industry. In the early 20th century, there were an estimated 100,000 elephants in Thailand. Thousands were worked to death or left with severe injuries from dragging enormous trees from the rainforest to roads, where they would be transported for lumber. After the ban, many elephants were used by the country's rapidly growing tourism industry to give performances and rides. Working in a tourism agency in her early 20s, Chailert watched the change happen with horror. 'There were many backpackers at that time. Camp owners were competing with each other for tourists,' she says. 'They would train their elephants to dance, ride a motorbike, play darts or hula hoop, walk on a rope or play a harmonica. This brought more suffering to elephants.' It took Chailert a few attempts to fulfil her dream of finding a way to care for Thailand's elephants. In 1996, she sold everything she had and borrowed money to set up an elephant sanctuary. She paid $30,000 for four hectares (10 acres) of land to provide a home to nine elephants. She insisted that there would be no elephant rides or performances. Her family invested money to help but after disagreements over how to run the park, she left the project, taking the elephants with her. Then, Chailert got lucky. National Geographic was filming a documentary with the Hollywood star Meg Ryan about Thailand's wild elephants, which were estimated to number 4,000 to 4,400 by 2023; Chailert and her newly released elephants featured in it. In the US, a Texas couple Bert and Christine Von Roemer saw the TV programme and contacted Chailert, donating enough money to buy a 20-hectare parcel of land in the Mae Taeng district of northern Thailand, near Chiang Mai. In 2003, Elephant Nature Park was born. Today, about 120 rescue elephants are at the park, which has grown to more than 1,000 hectares, home to a small fraction of the 3,900 or so domesticated elephants in the country. The sanctuary's work has an enormous social media following on Instagram and Facebook. Elephants arrive from all over Thailand. Chailert, now 64, sometimes travels for more than 50 hours with the animals after they are rescued. 'Some arrive with huge mental issues. Some stand like a zombie; some are aggressive, they swing their head back and forth. When they arrive, we do not allow our staff to use any tools or do anything that might make them feel threatened. 'We are gentle. We have to give them our love to make them trust us. We have to be patient,' she says. New arrivals are almost always put into quarantine and slowly introduced to the herd. Over time, they are accepted. When their ears start to flap and their tails start to whirl, the elephants are happy, says Chailert. 'The priority is that every elephant has a family,' she says, showing the herd feeding in the forest on a screen. Today, the conservation scheme is funded by visitors and volunteers who pay to work on the project. But despite the success of the sanctuary, Chailert fears for the future of Asian elephants, which she believes are decreasing in Thailand, despite official figures showing a steady increase in the population. 'Throughout Asia, many people are starting to hate elephants. Human-wildlife conflict is a big problem. Many died from being shot and poisoned' she says. 'Many have lost their habitat and water sources so they have to go to golf clubs and rice fields – places that don't belong to them. So, people get angry and make the elephant into a monster. The future will depend on the government policy to resolve this,' she says.
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
Zoo staff receive death threats after baboons culled and fed to lions
Staff at a German zoo who culled a dozen healthy baboons and fed their remains to lions have received death threats. The Tiergarten Nuremberg zoo said it euthanised 12 Guinea baboons on 29 July because their enclosure had become too overcrowded, despite growing protests from activists and animal rights groups. Some of the baboons' carcasses were used for scientific research, while others were fed to carnivores at the zoo, Tiergarten said. Zoo director Dr Dag Encke told Sky News that police were investigating after staff received threats. 'The staff are really suffering, sorting out all these bad words, insults and threats,' he told the broadcaster. 'The normal threat is 'we will kill you, and we'll feed you to the lions'.' 'But what is really disgusting is when they say that's worse than Dr Mengele from the National Socialists, who was one of the most cruel people in human history,' he added. 'That is really insulting all the victims of the Second World War and the Nazi regime.' Josef Mengele was a Nazi officer who performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. Plans to reduce the baboon population were first announced in February after the number of animals rose to 43, which far exceeded the capacity of a facility built for 25 adults and their offspring. The zoo said the overcrowding had begun to fuel aggression and conflict among the group. Dr Encke said efforts to rehome the animals or use contraception had failed. 'We love these animals. We want to save a species. But for the sake of the species, we have to kill individuals otherwise we are not able to keep up a population in a restricted area,' he told Sky News. The cull was carried out behind closed doors after the zoo shut for 'operational reasons'. Activists who scaled the zoo's fence on the day were detained by police, with some gluing themselves to the ground in protest. The decision drew outrage from campaigners, with animal rights groups pledging to file a criminal complaint. The zoo said it had tried to manage the population over the years, rehoming 16 baboons to zoos in Paris and China since 2011. But other facilities, including one in Spain, had reached capacity, it said. Animals are routinely euthanised in European zoos, but some cases have caused widespread controversy. In 2014, Copenhagen Zoo killed a healthy young giraffe, dissected it in front of visitors, and fed it to lions, prompting international outcry. And earlier this week, a zoo in Denmark appealed to the public to donate their small pets as food for its predators. The Aalborg Zoo has asked for donations of healthy and live chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs to feed its predators, such as the Eurasian lynx. In a post on social media, the zoo said it is trying to mimic the natural food chain of the animals housed there 'for the sake of both animal welfare and professional integrity'.
