Although jet black, or dark grey in color, the dolphins lay in a massive pool of red… soiled with their own blood. Thanks to whaling practices on Faroe Islands in Denmark for over 10 centuries, entire schools of these long-finned pilot whales are slaughtered during summers for “non-commerical” purposes. On a scale that includes the entire community, it is a free-for-all license to kill! Ostensibly, it is critical to their local culture, history and tradition – a carryover from the days of their Viking ancestry! In fact, here’s what the locals claim, with what I’d call a ‘perverse pride’ in their voices, “Save the whales… for dinner“!
“Grindadrap“, the local Faroese term for this ‘hunt’ (an embarrassment to Copenhagen, but nevertheless permitted), entails cordoning off the dolphins in a semi-circle, by boats, which then drive the pilot whales in the bay, or to the end of the fjord, where whalers stab each dolphin individually with a blunt gaff. While women do not participate in the hunt they stand to watch this spectacle! Somewhere along the line, I’m a tad perturbed on reading about the methyl mercury levels among other contaminants, in the pilot whale meat consumed by the Faroese; it’s kind of harmful to the neurological development among their children.
Do I want to write about this any further? I can feel the bile rising inside me. The photos in an email forwarded to me jolted me out of my semi-awake state this morning. I will not add them here. But if you’re interested, you may follow the links below…
What I thought was interesting, was learning more about these dolphins… the pilot whale is also a dolphin… like the killer whale, and second in size just like it. It is as intelligent as the Flipper, or the bottlenose dolphin, most visible on North American shores.
Although I shut my eyes, I can see them suffer.
Although I’m far away, I can hear their cries.
I’m straining my ears… but am numbed
By the public outcry.
Words-n-Motion 