- According to media reports and animal rights activists, around 100 dolphins have been killed in the Faroe Islands.
- The animals were sighted in the Skálafjord on Friday and killed in the morning hours, Faroese Radio reported.
- According to the whale and dolphin protection organization WDC, the animals killed are bottlenose dolphins.
Bottlenose dolphins live in tight social units of 100 to 200 animals. According to animal protection organizations, hunting has probably wiped out such a social unit.
The animals are protected in the EU – because the Faroe Islands belong to Denmark, but are largely autonomous and not a member of the EU, these rules do not apply to the islands.
Catch quota for dolphin species of 500 animals
For the marine protection organization OceanCare, the drive hunt for the animals is a “further escalation level”. The bottlenose dolphins were driven onto the beach and brutally killed.
The scientific director, Mark Simmonds, criticized the hunt: “According to the records, there has only been one kill of bottlenose dolphins in the Faroe Islands in the last ten years. So it’s a dramatic and tragic turn of events.”
Legend:
Killed dolphins in the Faroe Islands (stock image)
Keystone/Sea Shepherd
“All dolphin species are highly sentient and their intelligence is well known. It follows that the members of this large group were fully aware that they were being hunted and that their companions were in agony around them.”
Only recently, the Faroese government announced that it would introduce a catch quota for hunting white-sided dolphins. A maximum of 500 of these animals may be caught in the current and next year per year.
