New Report Exposes Acute Welfare Issues in Faroe Pilot Whale Hunt

A new expert assessment just published in the scientific journal, Frontiers in Marine Sciences, reviews the practices used in the Faroe Islands in their infamous hunts of pilot whales and other dolphin species. The author, independent welfare expert and veterinarian, Alick Simmons, calls this practice “inherently inhumane”.

Hundreds of pilot whales (which despite the name are a large species of dolphin) and other dolphins are killed each year in the Faroe Islands in a process, known as a “drive hunt” (and in the Faroeses language as the “Grindadráp”). The method used during these hunts requires the pod of whales to be driven inshore by motor vessels into shallow water. Hooks are then pushed into the animals’ blow hole (their nostril) and they are hauled into shallow water where they are killed. Numbers vary from year to year, but some six to seven hundred pilot whales are killed in this way annually.

Mark Simmonds (no relation), OceanCare’s Director of Science, commented on the study’s findings:

• “The Grindadráp is an inherently cruel practise that causes extreme suffering of highly sentient beings. It’s time for it to end for the simple, but overwhelming fact, that it involves horrific cruelty.
• “Supporters of the ongoing large-scale killing of pilot whales and other dolphin species in the Faroe Islands claim that what they are doing is efficient and causes swift death with little or no suffering. That interpretation is fundamentally challenged by this new independent assessment. The animals suffer when they are corralled and driven, they suffer when they are forced to strand and the notion that the method used to finally kill them is swift and efficient, sadly may not be true.”

The paper challenges the assertion that the final killing method causes instantaneous or near-instantaneous death because this cannot be substantiated. The method used involves the severing of the spinal cord, which may paralyse the animal but may not render it unconscious. This method is prohibited for farmed animals in the EU.

The paper concludes that the entire process of the Grindadráp is “inherently inhumane”. From the beginning of the drive through to the animals being driven into shallow water and then dragged onto the beach the whole process will almost certainly be highly distressing. This is further compounded by the likely disorientation from the noise and the other activities of the hunters, as well as the likely distress for the animals from being isolated from their social group.

The author of the paper, Alick Simmons, is a distinguished veterinarian and was the UK Government’s Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer (2007-2015) and the UK Food Standards Agency’s Veterinary Director (2004-2007). He is also the author of the book “Treated Like Animals Improving the Lives of the Creatures We Own, Eat and Use”, published last year, and he is available for interview about this paper. A short biography of Alick Simmons is available here.

Background Information

The Faroes are comprised of 18 small islands and are a semi-autonomous Danish protectorate, situated in the North Atlantic between Iceland and the Scottish Shetland Islands, with a population of about 50 thousand people. The Faroese have been hunting small whales and occasionally dolphins for hundreds of years, killing an average of around 700 pilot whales every year.

So far this year, 591* pilot whales have been killed in the islands in 5 hunts. The last drive hunts were on July 5th and 6th.

• May 4: 40 pilot whales
• June 1: 138 pilot whales
• June 28: 233 pilot whales
• July 5: 90 pilot whales
• July 6: 90 pilot whales

(Statistics from Heimabeti, a Faroese semi-official site)

OceanCare’s campaign on the Faroese whaling issue spans some thirty years. It was back in 1992, that OceanCare’s founder, Sigrid Lüber, acting as an NGO observer, presented a petition with 42,000 signatures against the killing of small cetaceans to the Chair at the International Whaling Commission conference.

Read more about OceanCare’s over 30 years of campaigning on Faroe Islands whale & dolphin hunts here.

Publications

• Simmons, Alick (2024): Capture and killing of small cetaceans in the Faroe Islands is inhumane and offers little scope for improvement. Mar. Sci. 11:1368524. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1368524
• OceanCare: Under Pressure. The need to protect whales and dolphins in European waters (hunting is covered in detail in Chapter 5)