The hunts, or “drives,” date back to the late 16th century. Authorities on the islands allow residents to drive herds of pilot whales into shallow waters, where they are killed using a ‘spinal lance’ that is inserted through the animal’s neck to break its spinal cord.
Sea Shepherd Global said that its volunteers documented nine separate hunts, which are known as grindadrap in the local Faroese language. The nine hunts accounted for the deaths of 198 Atlantic white-sided dolphins and 436 pilot whales, according to the conservation group.
The Faroe Islands government slammed Sea Shepherd's activities in a statement emailed to Fox News. "Sea Shepherd representatives will go to any lengths to paint a negative picture of the Faroese whale hunt as 'barbaric', 'unnecessary', 'evil' and 'lunacy' describing Faroese as 'sadistic psychopaths', with the aim of inciting anger and outrage against the people of the Faroe Islands," it said. "They have chosen an easy target, as whale drives in the Faroe Islands take place in the open for anyone to watch and document."
The government noted that whale meat and blubber of pilot whales have long been a valued part of the Faroes' national diet. "Catches are shared largely without the exchange of money among the participants in a whale drive and residents of the local district where they are landed," it said. "Each whale provides the communities with several hundred kilos of meat and blubber – meat that otherwise had to be imported from abroad."
One Sea Shepherd Global volunteer, whose identity has been withheld by the organization, described the Aug. 29 hunt at the Faroese village of Hvannasund.
“Witnessing a grind first hand was truly an eye-opening experience,” explained the volunteer, in a statement provided to Fox News. “As the pilot whales were driven to the shoreline by the small boats the intensity of the thrashing bodies grew. Hooks were sunk into the blowholes and the whales were dragged onto the shore in a sadistic game of ‘Tug of War.’ We witnessed whales seemingly bashing their heads against the stones in a frenzy.”
