More than 700 dolphins were killed in the Faroe Islands yesterday, a number that exceeds two-thirds of all marine mammals killed in the entire previous year. In the course of events, two Sea Shepherd crew members were arrested while documenting the hunts.
Three dolphin hunts — known locally as grind — took place simultaneously on the archipelago, located about 320 kilometers north of Scotland. The extraordinarily violent scenes showed hundreds of dolphins pushed towards shore and killed with spears and knives.
In total, 706 specimens were shot down: 406 in Tórshavn alone, the capital. An unprecedented massacre, which has no equal in the recent history of the Faroes.
The operations soon turned into chaos: the hunters themselves admitted the lack of spinal spears, a tool required by law in killing cetaceans. Many animals were then finished with knives alone, prolonging the agony until they bled to death. According to some testimonies, the lack of equipment and personnel would have also caused even more brutal cases: dolphins crushed against the rocks, overwhelmed by boats or injured by engine propellers.
In the midst of the massacre, two activists from the environmental organization Sea Shepherd were stopped by the police on charges of obstructing the hunts – a complaint filed directly by the hunters. The organization categorically rejects the accusation, claiming that its members were merely documenting what was happening. Both now risk expulsion from the islands.
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What happened in the Faroes is not simply a question of tradition versus modernity, nor a conflict between different cultures with incompatible sensibilities. It is something subtler and more disturbing: the demonstration of how a practice can survive its own meaning.
When a slaughter becomes chaotic, improvised and prolonged in agony, there isn’t much left to fall back on. Not the need for food, not ritual competence, not the respect – however questionable – due to every act that takes life. Only naked violence remains, documented and then censored in the very act of its documentation.
Arresting those who film does not erase what was filmed. Erase, if anything, the last justifications.
