Grim story behind dozens of bodies dumped 60 metres into ocean
Mercury, DDT and PCB are just three of the toxins found in dolphin meat from the Faroe Islands
WARNING - CONFRONTING IMAGES: Dozens of dead dolphins have been dropped 60 metres from a cliff into waters that surround the Faroe Islands, transforming the sea into a bloody soup.
Video shared with Yahoo News Australia shows a dump truck on the remote island of Suðuroy disposing of the carcasses on Wednesday. They are likely the remains of some of the 156 pilot whales, a large species of oceanic dolphin, that were driven towards land and butchered two days earlier.
Behind the camera was Sea Shepherd’s Sidney Haugen. Reflecting on the grim spectacle he argued throwing the bodies into the oceans reminds him of “wasted life”. “You see (the dolphins) being driven in while they’re still alive, there’s some processing, then the bodies go back into the water,” he said.
“The whole time watching I’m thinking: this isn't really necessary because you can just go to the supermarket and buy something instead,” he said.
Toxins preventing Faroese from eating dolphin
After the dolphins are butchered, most of the meat is distributed amongst the community, but most of the dolphins' other body parts are discarded. Large amounts of skin, heads, tails and bones and much of the blubber are all deposited back into the ocean.
Like meat, the blubber is a traditional food source, but fewer Faroese are now able to eat it because it contains high levels of toxins.
In 2011, the Faroese government suggested girls and women planning to have children should refrain from eating blubber, and no one should consume the liver or kidneys. It also recommended adults should only eat whale meat and blubber once a month.
This followed a warning in 2008, by the territory’s chief medical officer who argued against eating pilot whale because of toxins.
Like other large marine creatures, pilot whales have high levels of mercury and other industrial chemicals like PCB and DDT because they are near the top of the food chain.
While small amounts of mercury naturally exist in soil and water, human activities have increased ocean levels by 450 per cent. According to United Nations analysis, much of the problem can be traced back to nineteenth-century gold and silver mining practices.
Read more about the Faroe Islands
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Faroese see no difference between cow and whale
In May, Bjarni Mikkelsen, a marine mammal biologist at the Havstovan Faroe Marine Research Institute, told Yahoo the situation is “very sad” for the Faroese. “We have a traditional food source that we get for free… but then it’s heavily polluted,” he said.
Known locally as the grindadráp, the Faroese argue slaughtering whales is a tradition, and no different from killing a cow. “For many people that seems scary, but for us that grow up slaughtering our own meat it’s just natural,” a Faroese man told Yahoo this week.
Many Faroese argue it won’t be activism that eventually stops them whale hunting, but rather a lack of interest from younger people, and concerns around toxins.
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