1400 dolphins were killed in one day..a massacre provokes a wave of sadness in the Faroe Islands

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The government of the Faroe Islands has defended the killing of more than 1,400 dolphins in a single day during a traditional hunt, despite the emotion and grief caused by this unusually large massacre even in this Scandinavian archipelago.

"There is absolutely no doubt that whaling in the Faroe Islands is a dramatic spectacle for people unaccustomed to hunting and mammal slaughter. But these hunts are well regulated and legal frameworks complete," a Torshavn government spokesman told AFP.

This fishing tradition, inherited in the Danish Faroe Islands in the North Sea, is based on the encirclement of small whales by ships in a water bay, after which they fall into the hands of fishermen who remain on land where they are killed with knives.

These practices usually affect pilot whales, but on Sunday 1423 white-sided Atlantic dolphins, a species allowed to be hunted, were caught in Fjord near Skala in the middle of the archipelago.

Pictures of more than a thousand animals of this species showed their blood on a beach, which sparked many criticisms.

"What happened seems extreme, and it took time to eliminate all this number, while it usually happens quickly," said Halor F Rana, a journalist for the public channel "KVF".

The NGO "Sea Shepherd" described the fishing operations as "barbaric", while the Faroe Islands authorities consider it as part of a sustainable fishing system.

Animals caught in this way are not put up for sale in the market, but are used for their meat.

Local estimates indicate that there are about 0.00 thousand black whales in the waters of the archipelago, which is inhabited by about 50 thousand people.

About 600 whales were killed on these islands in 2020.

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