78 pilot whales were slaughtered near a cruise ship carrying marine conservationists NCPR News

Table Of Content

• MORE: 21-foot killer whale dies after beaching itself on Florida coast
• Passengers Horrified As Cruise Sails Into 'Distressing' Whale Massacre
• Rescue efforts made in Tasmania to save more than 200 beached whales
• whales slaughtered in front of cruise passengers in Faroe Islands
• Cruise line apologizes for 'distress' after passengers witness brutal whale hunt slaughter

Each catch is "distributed for free in the local community" but "in some supermarkets and on the dockside, whale meat and blubber is occasionally available for sale." Visit Faroe Islands says on its website about 800 pilot whales are killed a year, a number the government claims is sustainable. Whale and Dolphin Conservation estimates the global pilot whale population is 800,000 to 1 million, and about 100,000 reside in Faroe’s waters.

MORE: 21-foot killer whale dies after beaching itself on Florida coast

The species is threatened by whaling, entanglement in fishing gear, disease and contaminants in ocean waters, NOAA says. Ambassador Cruise Lne said the company told "guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat and stand against any profiteering from commercial whaling and dolphin hunts." The Faroese catch an average of 600 pilot whales annually, according to government data. From 2000 to 2020, no more than 773 white-sided dolphins were caught in a single year. The mass slaughter of pilot whales is a centuries-old hunting tradition in the Faroe Islands. A few cruise lines have discontinued supporting cruises to the deadly Faroes Islands in protest of the annual slaughter of pilot whales, namely two German lines, Hapag-Lloyd and AIDA.

Passengers Horrified As Cruise Sails Into 'Distressing' Whale Massacre

A cruise line is apologizing to passengers who witnessed the killing of dozens of pilot whales near their docked ship this week in the Faroe Islands. As the Ambassador cruise ship arrived in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, on Sunday, July 9, they were met with the culmination of a hunt of 78 pilot whales in the port. Conservationists from ORCA were on board the shp as it arrived in the Faroe Islands. According to the organization, small boats and jet skies were used to herd the pilot whales into shallow waters. Passengers aboard a luxury cruise ship watched in horror Sunday as their vessel docked at a small island where locals yielding knives and metal rods were killing wild dolphins as part of a centuries-old mass hunting tradition.

Rescue efforts made in Tasmania to save more than 200 beached whales

"We strongly object to this outdated practice and have been working with our partner, ORCA, the marine conservation charity dedicated to studying and protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises in UK and European waters, to encourage change since 2021," a spokesperson for the cruise line said. ''Sustainability is one of Ambassador Cruise Line's core values, and we fully appreciate that witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests onboard. Accordingly, we would like to sincerely apologise to them for any undue upset,'' they wrote in another tweet. As the Faroese tradition of grindadráp took place Sunday, passengers aboard a docked Ambassador Cruise Line ship were horrified to watch how locals have harvested their food for centuries. These sentient, highly intelligent social beings which travel in pods with around 20 other family members. The people in the Faroe Islands gut the whales and rip their babies out after terrorizing the pods.

Faroese Whale Hunt Plays Out in Front of Shocked Cruise Tourists - The Maritime Executive

Faroese Whale Hunt Plays Out in Front of Shocked Cruise Tourists.

Posted: Mon, 17 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

78 Whales Slaughtered In Front Of Passengers In Faroe Islands, Cruise Ship Apologises - NDTV

78 Whales Slaughtered In Front Of Passengers In Faroe Islands, Cruise Ship Apologises.

Posted: Sun, 16 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

The recent slaughter of pilot whales witnessed by guests who had sailed aboard the Ambition operated by Ambassador Cruise line earlier this week to the port capital of Torshavn in the Faroe Islands reminded me of the first time I became aware of this repulsive activity. Eight years ago (July 2015), a reader of Cruise Law News asked me what I thought of cruise lines sailing to the Faroe Islands where they routinely slaughter pilot whales. I wasn’t even exactly sure what a pilot whale was, but I promised her that I would look into it. ORCA said its conservationists witnessed more than 40 small boats and jet skis herd the whales into shallow waters before 150 hunters slaughtered the 78 whales with hooks and "killing lances" in 20 minutes. Among the passengers were conservationists with ORCA, a marine life advocacy group that seeks to protect whales and dolphins in European waters. LONDON -- A cruise line has apologized to over 1,000 of its passengers after one of its ships arrived at port in the middle of a whale hunt where dozens of the marine mammals were being slaughtered.

whales slaughtered in front of cruise passengers in Faroe Islands

In a 2021 letter to Faroe’s prime minister, chief executive Christian Verhounig expressed his dismay over a dolphin hunt that had occurred in September. That same year, the company teamed up with ORCA, a marine conservation group based in the United Kingdom, on an anti-whaling and dolphin hunt campaign. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the long and short finned pilot whales as "data deficient," meaning that there is not sufficient information to accurately give them a population status. The pilot whale is a marine mammal that belongs to the same family as dolphins and orcas.

pilot whales were slaughtered near a cruise ship carrying marine conservationists

Locals will herd the whale pods to certain locations with shallow water, where hunters wait to kill them using knives and hooks. "We fully appreciate that witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests onboard," the company added. "Accordingly, we would like to sincerely apologize to them for any undue upset." The killing of more than 1,400 dolphins in the region sparked outrage in 2021. At the time, the chairman of the Faroese Whalers Association told the BBC that while the number of dolphins killed was excessive, it was accidental.

These are not far out-at-sea murders by huge Japanese ships away from civilization. These are well attended sporting events where the whales are chased into a harbor and killed by the locals with knives while their family members cheer them on. The locals call it the “Grindadráp Grind.” I call it the killing of defenseless mammals for fun by sick sociopaths. There is nothing “traditional” about using helicopters and power boats to herd and kill whales. Many hundreds of pilot whales are slaughtered annually in the Faroe Islands which has admitted that around 800 pilot whales are killed each year.

Known for social behavior and their distinctive flat face and curved pectoral fin, they are found in the North Atlantic Ocean including waters around the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway and the British Isles. Passengers were there as 78 pilot whales, which are techncally one of the largest members of the dolphin family, were killed in the port area on Sunday. The North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Faroe Islands was red with the blood of 78 long-finned pilot whales that were hunted by men in the island’s capital of Torshavn, Yahoo News Australia reported. In a statement shared with ORCA, Ambassador said while the practice was a traditional way of sustaining communities, it had now become "outdated" and had instead turned commercial, with whale meat being sold in local supermarkets.

The British cruise liner received a mixed response to its apology to stunned passengers — with some slamming the operator for criticizing local tradition while others called for a boycott of the island altogether. Cruise ship accidents, injuries, crimes, disappearances, fires, and collisions on the high seas involve issues of maritime law. Jim Walker graduated from law school in 1983 and has been handling maritime law cases for the past thirty-five years. He handles a wide variety of cases from serious injuries to the highest profile sexual assault and cruise crime cases. According to Visit Faroe Islands, about 800 whales are killed annually and meat is distributed among those who participate. In a press release, ORCA said some of its conservationists were on the ship with tourists when the killings took place.

Blue Planet Society, which has tracked the hunt and the total killings, said the July 9 hunt brings the total this year to 650, and they called on the European Union and U.K. Sadly, the vast majority of cruise lines still sail to the Faroe Islands and have all ignored prior boycott efforts. The tourist board Visit Faroe Islands (whose Twitter name is @VisitFaroe), as well as the tourism board for the capital Torshavn (whose Twitter name is @VisitTorshavn) blocked our firm on Twitter, which should give you some insight into how the Faroes handles criticism of its barbaric pastime.

But Ambassador’s expressions of “disappointment” seem to be limited to the fact that the horrific slaughter occurred while the ship was in port in Torshavn. In other words, Ambassador was upset that the customers saw the gruesome truth of the local port’s so-called traditions. It doesn’t appear that Ambassador was concerned enough with the fact that terrorizing and killing these sensitive mammals is, in itself, inherently evil as to lose any profits by not cruising to Torshavn. This is exactly what hundreds of clueless Ambassador cruise passengers witnessed earlier this week where numerous media outlets reported that seventy-eight pilot whale were butchered. "We are utterly opposed to the commercial hunting of whales and dolphins in the Faroes, or anywhere else come to that," Ambassador said.

According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, they measure 19 to 25 feet long and can weigh up to 5,000 pounds. Grindadráp, or grind for short, occurs each summer and involves the mass killing of sea mammals like the long-finned pilot whale — which is a dolphin, despite its name. I was shocked with what I quickly learned of the so-called “tradition” of slaughtering pilot whales in the Faroes.