A grisly discovery made by a Sea Shepherd undercover operation, of a mass slaughter of 236 pilot whales in the Danish Faeroe Islands has revealed the brutal way in which these whales were killed.
The discovery has echoes of “The Cove,” the award winning film that highlighted the annual slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan.
Using an undercover operative, Peter Hammarstedt, who posed as Swedish film student, Sea Shepherd has documented the method the islanders used to round up, strand and sever the spinal cords of pods of whales. A method called “the grind.”
As with other whaling communities the Faroese government claims that the deaths of the whales were quick and painless, but sadly the horrific photos that Hammarstedt has managed to capture shows otherwise. One photo clearly shows a whale with several hack wounds to her head. Hammarstedt described the scene; “The islanders basically used her as a chopping board....Some whales are hacked repeatedly for up to four minutes before they die.”
Despite warnings in previous years that the meat from pilot whales contains high levels of mercury and is dangerous for consumption, the islanders continue to butcher the cetaceans.
The pictures themselves paint a gruesome enough scene. The whalers did not stop at adult whales either; Hammarstedt also found pregnant females with their babies and foetuses ripped out of their bodies. “Pilot whales are strongly matriarchal; I can’t imagine the fear and panic that these mothers must have felt as their families were wiped out in front of them.”
Hammarstedt took a risk during this undercover operation as some of the islanders recognised him from the film, “Whale Wars.” Sea Shepherd has voiced its concerns over the killing of the pilot whales; “Pilot whales are classified as “strictly protected” under the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. By allowing the slaughter to continue in the Faeroes, Denmark fails to abide by its obligations as a signatory of the Convention.”
No comments:
Post a Comment