Traditional whale hunt in the Faroe Islands turns the sea red with blood
30 replies, posted
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45209587
Cambridge University student Alastair Ward, 22, photographed the traditional "whale driving" carried out by the community in the bay in Sandavágu.
The Faroe Islands are located in the North Atlantic between Norway and Iceland and are made up of 18 tiny islands
Pilot whale meat and blubber are a food source that will help feed the 50,000 Faroese through winter. Locals have been carrying out the hunts for centuries, but the gruesome images
will likely shock many outsiders.
Mr Ward said he had been stunned by the sheer number of whales in the bay."They were driving them into the bay, prodding them with their oars. "Once they got close enough, the
whole town sprinted in and started hacking at them," he told the Triangle News agency."Even the children were getting involved, pulling on the ropes and jumping on the carcasses.
"We were just sat there speechless and a bit upset but you couldn't really pull yourself away."
The inhabitants consider whaling a community activity open to everyone, which they say is regulated by national laws and is conducted in a way to cause as little suffering to the
whales as possible. The Faroese say the whaling they carry out is sustainable, catching around 800 pilot whales a year, with around 100,000 whales around the Faroe Islands.
But Mr Ward said he had been concerned over the methods of the whale killings."The squealing from the whales was horrible. They were putting hooks on ropes in their blowholes to
pull them in and then hacking at them with knives."They didn't die in a very humane way."
Graphic image warning.
This controversy basically comes up every year. It makes an easy target because it's graphic, but it's no less humane than factory farmed meat. In fact, I'd say it's more humane even if the slaughter method isn't quick (which I'm not sure is the case either) since these are animals that have lived their whole lives naturally until the slaughter. But people are happy to go on eating meat as long as they don't have to see how it's made.
Pilot whales are not endangered, they're hunted sustainably, while it's tradition it's tradition borne out of necessity, since the Faroe Islands don't have much arable land, so this is how the Faroese raised enough food for everyone.
At least they're using it for food, not for profit.
Don't the generally allow "traditional" ways of killing because it actually prevents overfishing/whaling vs a clean and effortless method?
Correct me if I'm wrong there.
I'm not against it except the fact they have children helping apparently. Guarantee at least a fifth of people who eat meat would stop if they saw graphic footage of slaughterhouses.
This is completely unlike "science" vessals hunting whales unrestricted. Outside maybe looking gruesome, there really isn't any issue here.
What's wrong with children helping?
People take their kids hunting all the time. If you think that's weird I don't disagree, but it's certainly not irregular in other forms of hunting. And I don't have a problem with people not eating meat or thinking it's wrong, I just have a problem with people uncritically seeing this as an easy target for moral outrage because it's ugly and in the open, and never questioning how the chicken breast got on their plate at dinner.
Here's an article from a couple years ago by a vegan at least partly standing up for Heri Joensen's (frontman for the Faroese metal band Tyr) defense of the pilot whale slaughter:
TYR Frontman Defends Participation In Whaling Amidst Boycotts
How would you even kill hundreds of whales quickly and painlessly anyway
My father took me hunting, but if that was me with those whales it would have fucked me up for life. It's hard for me to bring myself to hurt any animal for some reason.
No. This is just wrong.
Most people through out were heavily involved with the meat they ate. They knew it was from an animal that lived. That didn't bother them.
I don't get why people assume that being aware of how the sausage is made will make people not eat sausage anymore.
I've butchered a chicken before, and you know what? It was gross, it was bloody, and that chicken was the tastiest chicken I've ever eaten. Being involved with your food should never make you run scared. You ate meat your whole life, I assume. Recognizing that those meals were made possible by the death of those animals is important. What's even more important is involving yourself in that chain. I think that 1/5 of people who would stop are welcome to that decision, but it's based on something that I can't respect. They were only operating out of ignorance before hand. I think dispelling ignorance is important and if done properly, few people would quit, and most would probably become more involved in the process.
"They didn't die in a very humane way."
How do we kill them in a very humane way?
Whales are really smart creatures so I kinda do have issue with rounding them all up and butchering them but at the same time you always have to remember.
If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of food?
Nobody (besides the deluded) disagrees that we evolved to kill and eat animals, the ethical question is more of whether we should if alternatives exist, and if they don't, whether we should do so quickly and painlessly
It sounds bad but I recommend JohnnyMo's video even though I wasn't against this initially.
Kids have been on livestock farms for centuries anyway so what do I know. That's my only qualm with this, but I know it's unfounded since they've been doing this a while.
I can't speak to the "should we in the first place" part. I like my meat too much to go vegetarian.
Quickly and painlessly though? No question. If you're going to kill an animal for food, you should strive to do it without causing unnecessary suffering.
I don't like killing whales in general but the Faroe hunt is not the only hunt in the region. Iceland and Norway still hunt whales, too. Iceland just recently killed a hybrid blue/fin whale.
I don't think whaling has a place in society anymore.
https://youtu.be/HYOTkwFhe-w
Please watch or listen to these videos (~13 minutes total) before getting too bent out of shape by the whale grind in the Faroes. Heri is a native islander who partakes in the grind himself, and has quite a bit of insight to offer on the topic. I did not embed them because the thumbnails contain possibly graphic imagery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlPgA-YXLEU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBcwYwx07s
So you don't respect people who align their actions to their moral values once they get out of ignorance? I'm not sure I follow.
still seems better than japan and using a 100 lb harpoon to rip into the whale, tow it back to their ship string it up then kill it for 'science'
It just seems like they should have been thinking of those things for the entire duration of their lives consuming meat.
Why people are so disconnected from their food, I still don't understand it. The only meat I ate as a kid was from grocery stores. When we drove past farms in my area, it seemed only logical that the cows who were so cute 100 feet away from me, were eventually going to be my food. There wasn't a disconnect there for me.
For those that react to that disconnect by cutting themselves out of the food chain entirely, I just see that as a "knee jerk" type reaction to the knowledge they now have. It also doesn't seem to me, that the ultimate "suffering" of those animals is valued. I often see those who are against the consumption of meat all together advocate for a livestock-less farming trade. That to me
sounds a lot like the ultimate destruction of these species. Cows, pigs, and chickens are all reliant on us. Washing our hands of them and their care is subjecting them to the wills of nature.
It's more that I consider it to be a knee jerk reaction which I find hard to value, and I also think way less than 1/5 would actually stop eating meat in that case.
I've had hunter friends turn vegetarians into "normal" people by demonstrating that the connection one has with their food through that experience is nothing but a benefit to the grander picture.
Thanks @Chonch for the videos, which I put in the OP. Sorry about that poor statement about 1/5 of people quitting meat.
I don't think there's anything wrong with quota hunting of whales. It's the same as hunting moose, in my opinion.
Most arguments against it don't make much sense to me.
Just keep in mind that in Norway (I can't really speak for iceland, but the same probably applies) there are guidelines you're supposed to follow for humane hunting & killing, just like with moose.
I'm sure the grenade harpoons to a great job when aimed right.
People aren't stupid, they obviously know where the meat they eat comes from.
What they may not know is how exactly it's made. The thing is, there's a pretty big difference between the way animals are killed in a small traditional farm and in a modern slaughterhouse. I'm not sure how it's a knee jerk reaction to avoid meat after seeing what goes on in those places.
I'm not sure what you find hypocritical about vegetarians/vegans who care about animal suffering wanting to do away with raising livestock altogether. You can do that simply by refraining from breeding them. The species will go extinct but those who remain until the end won't suffer either. Would you have something against people no longer breeding pugs, for instance?
With one of these badboys, duh:
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/109874/949ab20d-1729-4bfb-b3d4-3212fad4842e/image.png
I make a sea of blood in my washroom every morning, don't see me making a big deal about it though do you
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