Fewer dolphins will be killed in the Faroe Islands this year

Faroe Islands government imposed a limit Number of dolphins that can be killed this year during the controversial traditional cetacean hunt: 500 max. The decision then came in 2021 1423 killed In one day, it was far more than the average of the past 20 years, which has attracted particularly fierce criticism among animal rights organizations and beyond: a petition signed by nearly 1.3 million people (plus twice the Faroese population) asked the government local authorities to ban cetacean hunting altogether.

The Faroe Islands (Faroe Islands with the Danish alphabet) are An archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean: It is located north of Scotland, west of southern Norway and southeast of Iceland, and while it belongs to Denmark it is self-governing in almost all aspects of domestic politics – like Greenland. traditional fishing for cetaceans,”Grindrap“In the Faroe Islands, it is one of the things that they are most famous for in the world. Every year, in the summer, groups of cetaceans are collected by fishermen’s boats and pushed towards the shallow waters of the bay: there they are shored, and they are killed and slaughtered by fishermen on land. These are mostly Dolphins belong to Ocean Leucopleurus acutus And the Pilot whales.

there Grindrap It has been approved and regulated by the local authorities, who claim that the Faroe Islands have been feeding on cetaceans for centuries, and is an important event for the locals, who gather to witness the animals being killed and then the splitting of the meat.

On average, according to Faroese government statistics for this century, 260 dolphins are killed each year in the Grindrap And given that, according to scientific estimates, 80 thousand live around the Faroe Islands Leucopleurus acutusHowever, annual hunting of up to 825 individuals would not jeopardize the survival of the species in the territory. However, the Faroe Islands government described the killings that occurred last year as “exceptionally numerous”, and acknowledged that “aspects of the manhunt were not satisfactory”.

According to the animal rights organization Sea Shepherd, the hunt in 2021 was “cruel and futile”, among other things because it was carried out by people who did not have a license to participate and therefore did not know how to quickly kill cetaceans. Even among members of Faroe Islands fishing associations, the event was criticized because dolphins were left to suffer for so long before they were killed.

The limit of 500 dolphins decided by the Faroe Islands government will be in effect for this year and next. In 2024, new altitude assessments will be made taking into account proposals 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 Islands are part, along with Greenland, Iceland and Norway: The Faroe Islands government has requested The Foundation’s Scientific Committee updated its guidance on how to practice sustainable dolphin fishing.

It was also announced that the government would monitor the methods used Grindrap It will be verified that the killing of dolphins is carried out “as quickly and efficiently as possible”. NAMMCO advised the development of specific hunting weapons for dolphins, as for pilot whales, in order to quickly kill the animals, without leaving them in agony: a prototype was created that has not yet been tested.