Whale and Dolphin Killing in the Faroes: Why change will come

Therefore, beside the need for better regulations preventing animal cruelty, which OceanCare is trying to achieve, we are convinced that growing awareness will also drive change.

This is also very much the case in the Faroe Islands.

For sure, people viewing animals may interpret them and their behaviour differently, depending on their own experience and knowledge. They will be strongly influenced by what they have been taught and what has been reinforced within the communities that they have grown up and live in. For example, the fact that a large group of dolphins or pilot whales can be driven into the dangerous shallows and killed, might be taken to illustrate that they are relatively mindless and simple animals. The fact that it is rare for any to break away and escape may add to this interpretation. However, studies of these animals show them to be highly sophisticated. Their large brains allow them to communicate with each other and closely coordinate their activities. A better explanation for their behaviour when chased is that they have evolved in an environment where the best form of defence from predators is to stay together to face it. Out in the open oceans there is nowhere to hide, so their whole culture revolves around staying together even in the face of terrible danger.

This has been their best strategy for the millennia that they have been on Earth, but this same behaviour leaves them vulnerable to drive hunting. In early human history many peoples living in many different cultures around the world learnt how to exploit whales and dolphins. Early ship-borne whalers knew, for example, that if you speared a calf (which would be slower swimming than an adult and hence easier to catch), its mother would probably stay around to try and help it, making her more vulnerable to them catching and also killing her.

Cultures Matter

The pro-whaling community in the Faroes (noting that there are voices of dissent there too) ardently defend their whale and dolphin killing and the main argument that they use is that it is important to their culture. Criticism of their whale and dolphin killing may be seen as an attack on their culture and their identity. At OceanCare we respect the need to protect human cultures and we appreciate that there are sensitivities in this. However, we do not see the need to underpin the culture in the Faroes with cruel and unnecessary whale and dolphin killing.

In previous centuries, the people living in this remote archipelago of small islands had to look to the sea for their survival and hunting sea animals provided essential food. Now the situation there is much changed. The islands are less isolated now and many are connected by undersea tunnels and their supermarkets are richly stocked with produce from around the world. In fact, the people in the islands now have one of the highest standards of living of any country in the Northeast Atlantic region. The nature of the hunting process has also evolved. In the early 20^th century and before, the hunting would have been conducted from row boats and communications would have been much simpler. A lookout would have spied a nearby pod and then informed the local community and a hunt initiated if the conditions were appropriate. Then rowboats would have been launched to try and drive the pod into shore. Now motorboats and jet skies are used alongside modern forms of communication (cell phones, apps and social media) to coordinate the hunts and drive the animals. It is clear then that the culture of the hunting process has evolved over time. Whale and dolphin hunting in the Faroes today benefits from all that modern technology has to offer.

It is also apparent that the people in the Faroes are concerned about animal welfare. There are laws there to protect the welfare of domestic pets and livestock similar to those in neighbouring Europe where there is also, of course, cruelty to animals.

However, the provisions of the Faroese animal welfare laws do not appear to extend to marine mammals. Nonetheless, there is also another line of evidence that shows that the Faroe Island people and authorities are not indifferent to the welfare concerns, and this is apparent in the efforts made starting in the1990s to ‘upgrade’ their killing tools, including the development of the long-handled, double-bladed, ‘spinal lance’. This is the device that is used in the final killing process and plunged into the neck of the secured whale or dolphin in order to try to sever its spinal cord and the blood vessels around it. This replaced the large knife that was previously used.

Similarly, the gaff used to secure the whale and haul it into the shallows was ‘improved’. Previously it was a sharp-ended hook that was driven into the flesh of the stranded animal, but the modern version, introduced in 1995, is round-ended and inserted into the blowhole. This attempt to improve the killing equipment illustrates not only awareness of welfare concerns but also a willingness to adapt in response to concerns.

A Misleading Perspective

Most significantly, the English language webpages of the Faroes government currently state this:

In the past, whales were killed with a special knife. Today, a regulation spinal lance, designed by a Faroese veterinarian, is used. The whale loses consciousness and dies within a few seconds.

Faroese animal welfare law stipulates that whales are to be killed as quickly as possible to minimise any suffering. Today, an entire school of whales is killed within 5 to 10 minutes. (Source)

This statement reflects what is likely to be the widespread current understanding in the Faroe Islands that the hunt is both swift and relatively humane. The hunters see themselves as efficient and believe that welfare concerns have been addressed.

However, our perspective is that the animals’ suffering begins with the drive itself – in fact it begins at the point where the pod realises that it is being driven, and when they huddle together as they try to flee the boats. Their suffering continues when they find themselves in what is for them unnaturally dangerous shallow water and in danger of stranding. Then comes the actual unnatural stranding itself, being pulled towards shore with large hook inserted in their blow holes and then the unnatural and undoubtedly painful pressure that being semi-stranded will put on their organs. Because drive hunts can continue for hours—and sometimes on rare occasions dolphins or whales are even held overnight—their suffering is counted not in seconds or minutes, but in hours.

This is backed by science and, therefore, should be subject to extensive debate, reflection and hopefully change. The more information arises, the more concerned we have to be about the continuation of drive hunts on whale and dolphin species no matter where.

The Faroese government statement quoted above focuses on the final killing process only. This is simply not the full story. Furthermore, their claim that death will follow in a few seconds on application of the spinal lance may not be correct. Severing the spinal cord may paralyse the animal but it does not kill it or make it immediately unconscious, this will only happen if the blood supply to the brain is adequately stopped and it is questionable that the spinal lance achieves this.

Historically drive hunts were also conducted by communities in the Scottish Islands. Here the practice has ceased and yet the human cultures of Scotland clearly continue to thrive. We hope that such change will also occur in the Faroe Islands and, in fact, we are convinced that it will. Such change would certainly halt a certain activity, but their culture, which clearly includes a special relationship with the wildlife of the sea, could still be maintained without further cruelty and killing.

Takes this year in the Faroe Islands

Recorded hunts since this summer in the Faroes (numbers are unofficial estimates at this time; the annual numbers are highly variable but around 700 pilot whales have been taken each year recently and the dolphin take, with the exception of 2021, is usually in the low hundreds or sometimes none at all)

June 12, 2025, Leynar, over 246 whales (may be as high as 296 based on photo evidence)

July 5, 2025, 49 pilot whales killed in Bø

July 20, 2025, 116 pilot whales killed, Tjørnuvík

Aug. 25, 2025, 50 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, Skálafjörður

Aug. 26, 2025, 30+ pilot whales killed in Sandagerði (Torshavn)

Aug. 30, 2025, Hvalba, 29 pilot whales

Looking to the Future

At OceanCare we will continue to carefully bear witness to the hunting. We will report and publicise it and call respectfully on the relevant authorities in the islands and in Denmark to end it. We have regularly reached out for dialogue with the respective authorities which – so far – has been ignored but we will continue to do so. We will also be looking at how the developing discipline of welfare science can shine a new light on whale and dolphin hunting revealing the true natures and sensitivities of these amazing animals.

It is important that criticism is continued to be voiced and concerns addressed via diplomatic channels at any and all given opportunities and so we continue to call on those in positions of power to do this in all of their meeting with the people of the Faroes Islands.

Change is a constant and the drive hunts will cease.