The New Dark Age

25 November, 2009 — williambowles.info

These photos were sent to me by a friend and I now have the link to a petition:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop-the-calderon-dolphin-slaughter-in-denmark

I have just received the following Email from WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

Whale hunting in the Faroe Islands
Every year in the Faroe Islands, a territory of Denmark, hundreds of pilot whales and other species including bottlenose dolphins, Atlantic white-sided dolphins and bottlenose whales, are hunted for their meat. The techniques used are intensely stressful and cruel. Entire family groups are rounded up out at sea by small motor boats and driven to the shore. Once they are stranded in shallow water, blunt-ended metal hooks are inserted into their blowholes and used to drag the whales up the beach, where they are killed with a knife cut to their major blood vessels.

The hunt is not only inhumane, and probably unsustainable, but it is harming the people who eat the whales, due to their high levels of contamination. A long study of one thousand children in the Faroe Islands has shown serious developmental problems that are directly attributable to the contaminated whales.

WDCS has been active for over 20 years, trying to stop this hunt and also to prevent the Faroe Islands from resuming commercial whaling and international trade in whale meat. We will not pretend that our task is simple. Whaling is a long tradition of this remote and proud community that is proving hard to break. But traditions evolve over time and, rest assured, WDCS will not give up until drive hunting is consigned to the history books in the Faroe Islands, and its children can eat safely.

Progress is painfully slow. For example it was only in 2008, years after medical officers advised people to cut consumption of whale meat, that the Health Minister stopped whale meat being offered in hospitals.

What can you do?
Please send a politely worded letter to the Faroese government and (copy it to the Danish Foreign Ministry) to express your protests about this hunt. The addresses are provided below. Please make the time to mail a letter, or send a fax, as it has more impact than an email.

Office of the Faroese Government
Kaj Leo Holm Johannesen
Prime Minister
Tinganes
Post box 64
Torshavn
FR 110
Faroe Islands
Tel. +298 306000
Fax +298 306015

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
PER STIG MØLLER
2, Asiatisk Plads
DK-1448 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Tel. +45 33 92 00 00
Fax +45 32 54 05 33
E-mail um@um.dk

Inhumane hunting methods
As you have seen, the whales and dolphins are killed in shallow waters. Entire family groups are rounded up out at sea by small motor boats and driven to the shore. Once they beach, blunt-ended metal hooks inserted into their blowholes are used to drag the whales up the beach, where they are killed with a knife cut to their major blood vessels. WDCS believes that the driving, dragging and killing, all of which takes place within view of their pod members, is intensely stressful and cruel.

Lack of regulation
The Faroe Islands’ drive hunt is not subject to international control as it targets small species of whales (mainly pilot whales and some dolphin species) that the International Whaling Commission (IWC) does not currently manage. As the Faroe Islands are not members of the European Union, they are not subject to European legislation that forbids whale hunting. Unfortunately therefore, there are no legal mechanisms currently available to prevent the hunt.

Hunting levels may be unsustainable
Although a regional whale management body gives scientific advice suggesting that the hunts are sustainable, the body is comprised of only whaling nations, which is likely to bias its findings.  However, even that organisation has recognised that pilot whales are impacted by human activities such as fishing and pollution, which could well affect the long term health of populations.  The population status for some of the species killed in the Faroe Islands drive hunts remain under debate, as biases in survey data have hampered attempts to make accurate abundance estimates.

Whale meat is heavily contaminated
Pilot whales in this region – the main species targeted – carry high levels of mercury and persistent organic compounds in their meat and blubber. Long term independent studies of children in the Faroe Islands have directly linked neurological delays, cardiovascular problems and other development problems to their mothers’ pre-natal consumption of whale meat. In addition, recent studies have shown a direct link between the occurrence of Parkinson’s disease in Faroese adults and eating pilot whale meat. Despite this, the hunts and consumption continues.

What is WDCS doing about the Faroese whale hunt?
Sadly we have found that when we make (and encourage the public to make) vociferous protests about the Faroe Islands’ drive hunt, the level of hunting actually increases. In recent years our campaigning against the hunt has taken a lower profile and the number of whales killed has decreased. But no level of hunting is acceptable to WDCS and we continue to seek new ways to stop this practice.

As well as making representations about this issue at any appropriate forum, WDCS is currently focused on trying to protect the whales by invoking people’s concern about their own health, and that of their children. The Faroese authorities issued an advisory notice almost ten years ago, warning certain vulnerable consumers (such as pregnant women) to eat less whale meat, but a whole new generation has matured since then and we doubt that new mothers today are aware of this recommendation.  We plan to change that!

We are also active in trying to prevent the Faroe Islands from resuming commercial whaling and trade in whale meat. In recent years, the government has expressed an interest in hunting minke and fin whales on a commercial basis and recently imported whale meat from Iceland.

WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
WDCS
Brookfield House
38 St Paul Street
Chippenham
Wiltshire
SN15 1LJ
T: 01249 449 500
F: 01249 449 501
www.wdcs.org.uk
WDCS is the global voice for the protection of whales, dolphins and their environment.
Since commercial whaling was ‘banned’ more than 30,000 whales have been killed.
Help us Stop Whaling.  www.whales.org.