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78 pilot whales were slaughtered near a cruise ship carrying marine conservationists

Emily Olson

A group of fisherman drive pilot whales towards the shore during a hunt in the Faroe Islands in May 2019. Andrija Ilic/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A group of fisherman drive pilot whales towards the shore during a hunt in the Faroe Islands in May 2019.

A cruise line is apologizing to passengers who witnessed the killing of dozens of pilot whales near their docked ship this week in the Faroe Islands.

Passengers aboard the cruise ship Ambition, owned by the U.K.-based Ambassador Cruise Line, had just arrived Sunday in the port of Tórshavn in the Danish territory when they caught the spectacle, part of a long-standing and highly scrutinized local tradition.

Among those passengers were conservationists with ORCA, a marine life advocacy group that seeks to protect whales and dolphins in European waters. Since 2021, Ambassador has paid for ORCA staff to join their cruises in order to educate tourists on marine wildlife and collect data on the animals.

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In an account shared by ORCA and confirmed by Ambassador, the conservationists said over 40 small boats and jet skis herded the whales to a beach where 150 people worked to haul the animals ashore with hooks and slaughter them with lances.

In total, the hunt lasted about 20 minutes, ORCA said. Some of the animals, which included nine calves, took over 30 seconds to die.

Ambassador Cruise Line said it was "incredibly disappointed" that the hunt unfolded near the ship and that it continues to "strongly object to this practice." The company asks their guests not to support the hunters by purchasing local whale and dolphin meat.

"We fully appreciate that witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests onboard," Ambassador said in a statement to NPR. "Accordingly, we would like to sincerely apologise to them for any undue upset."

A representative for the Faroe Islands government did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on Sunday's hunt.

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Long-finned pilot whales , which are technically a species of dolphin, are a medium-sized marine mammal that dwells in the North Atlantic, known for their bulbous head and sickle-shaped flippers. They're not currently listed as an endangered species, but as a sign their population may be on the decline due to human activity, the species is listed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the U.S..

The mammals live in social pods of up to 20 individuals, organized into a larger school of hundreds of animals — a social structure that makes them easy targets for whalers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In the Faroe Islands, the hunting of pilot whales is known as the "grindadrap" or "grind." The Faroese view the tradition as central to their cultural identity and a sustainable way to gather food, according to a local government website.

The government says the killing is not highly commercialized. Each catch is "distributed for free in the local community" but "in some supermarkets and on the dockside, whale meat and blubber is occasionally available for sale."

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Multiple hunts can occur throughout the year, and each is carried out by people with a required license and supervised by elected officials. Local legislation stipulates the killing must be carried out as "quickly and efficiently as possible."

The government says the average catch is around 800 animals, an insignificant impact on the overall pilot whale population, which it says is around 778,000 animals.

But a record single-day killing of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in 2021 brought the practice into intensified scrutiny. The chairman of the Faroese Whalers Association told the BBC that the size of that killing was purely accidental.

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That Sunday's slaughter unfolded near the cruise ship made it seem as if the whalers were "flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists," many of whom were hoping to catch a glimpse of marine life in the wild, ORCA CEO Sally Hamilton said.

"It defies belief that the Faroese authorities allowed this activity to take place in clear sight of a cruise ship packed with passengers," she wrote in a statement shared with NPR. "At some point, the Faroese authorities will have to decide if its marine life is a more attractive tourist proposition when it is alive than when it is being killed."

The cruise ship was docked for a stop in Tórshavn, the main harbor of the 18-island territory between Iceland and the Shetland Islands. While the local government has invested more into its tourism sector, fishing and marine-related industries still remain the region's top economic driver .

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78 whales slaughtered in front of cruise passengers in Faroe Islands

Ambassador cruise line apologized for exposing customers to a traditional whale hunt in blood-soaked waters.

This story contains a graphic image.

A British cruise line has apologized to passengers who witnessed the slaughter of nearly 80 pilot whales in the Faroe Islands on Sunday. Ambassador Cruise Line guests arrived to the port in the capital of Torshavn, where a traditional hunt had turned the sea red. Hunters used motorboats and a helicopter to corral the whales in a beach nearby before dragging them with hooks and butchering them with knives.

The British cruise line quickly issued an apology to guests who were blindsided by the graphic nature of the hunt, or Grindadráp in Faroese.

“We were incredibly disappointed that this hunt occurred, particularly at a time when our ship was in port, and have offered our sincere apologies to all those onboard who may have witnessed this distressing occurrence,” the company said in a statement.

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Though the carnage caught the cruise line by surprise when it pulled into Torshavn, the company had been aware of the annual event. In a 2021 letter to Faroe’s prime minister, chief executive Christian Verhounig expressed his dismay over a dolphin hunt that had occurred in September. That same year, the company teamed up with ORCA , a marine conservation group based in the United Kingdom, on an anti-whaling and dolphin hunt campaign.

Before the July sailing, the ORCA and Ambassador had tried to raise the issue with the Faroese government and Visit Faroe Islands, the tourism office. Their attempts failed. The cruise line also urges its guests and crew members to spurn the industry by not buying or eating whale or dolphin meat.

“While traditional hunts of this type have taken place for many years in the Faroe Islands to sustain local communities, we strongly object to this outdated practice, which we believe is now becoming commercial, with meats sold in local supermarkets,” the company stated.

The tourism office did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. Svein Magnason, the chief adviser in the Faroe Islands’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culture, said in an email that tourism and whaling taking place side by side “does not cause concern for the government, although whale drives can be a dramatic sight for spectators unfamiliar with the slaughter of mammals.” The local government later published the same response in a statement on its website.

For centuries, islanders living on the isolated archipelago in the North Atlantic had to rely on the sea for sustenance. Whaling was their livelihood and lifeline. Today, the country of about 53,000 residents boasts modern supermarkets and even a Burger King. However, Faroese still participate in the whale hunt, a community activity that can be traced as far back as 1584, when, according to government records , four pilot whales were killed. Images of a beach lined with pilot whales recalls the dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan, depicted in the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove.”

The meat and blubber is distributed among the islanders, one of the hunt’s defenses: It’s feeding the people. However, health experts warn that the cetaceans contain dangerous levels of mercury, heavy metals and pollutants. According to the United Kingdom branch of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, recent studies demonstrate a direct link between such diseases as Parkinson’s, hypertension and arteriosclerosis of the carotid arteries in Faroese adults and the consumption of pilot whale meat. Children and pregnant people are especially at high risk.

The “Grind” takes place over several months, roughly April to October, depending on the severity of the weather. Summer is often high season. “If you go to the Faroe Islands in July, what do you expect?” said John Hourston, founder of Blue Planet Society , a U.K.-based group dedicated to ending the hunt. “The [cruise line] should have known better.”

Long-finned pilot whales are one of the largest members of the dolphin family, second in size to the killer whale. The highly intelligent animals measure 19 to 25 feet long and can weigh up to 5,000 pounds, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They have round, bulbous heads and upturned mouths that resemble a smile.

Visit Faroe Islands says on its website about 800 pilot whales are killed a year, a number the government claims is sustainable. Whale and Dolphin Conservation estimates the global pilot whale population is 800,000 to 1 million, and about 100,000 reside in Faroe’s waters. So far this year, the government has registered 646 whale killings, including the 78 on Sunday and 445 on June 14.

In addition to pilot whales, Hourston said hunters target other small whales and dolphins, such as orcas, Atlantic white-sided dolphins and Northern bottlenose whales. In September 2021, participants killed more than 1,400 Atlantic white-sided dolphins , an alarming body count that forced the government to cap the number at 500. There is no such quota for the pilot whales, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Over the past 20 years, the group said more than 20,000 marine mammals have perished in these hunts.

“It’s a blood sport. It’s no more than a summer pastime,” Hourston said. “Any small dolphin or small whale is fair game.”

Slaughter of nearly 1,500 dolphins sparks outcry over traditional hunt in Faroe Islands

The European Union bans the killing of whales and dolphins; however, the self-governing country under the Kingdom of Denmark is not a member of the organization. Government officials said its hunting techniques have improved over the years, though animal welfare groups disagree. The standard practice involves securing a hook in the blowhole, dragging the animal onto the beach, severing its spinal cord and blood supply, and cutting its neck with a whaling knife.

“It is barbaric and torture, and it’s done on such a large scale,” Hourston said. “Those people are going to need counseling after seeing that.”

In his 2021 letter to the prime minister, the Ambassador Cruise Line chief executive hinted that the company might cut the Faroes from its itineraries if the country didn’t address the cruelty of the hunt. In 2014, Disney eliminated the port from its schedule; a few European cruise lines, such as AIDA and Hapag-Lloyd, followed suit. This week, Ambassador explained its reasons for continuing to visit the country, despite its objections to the hunt.

“We don’t support the hunt by coming here,” the company stated. “We’ll always use it as an opportunity to remind the authorities that tourists want to marvel at the wildlife and not to watch it being killed.”

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Nora Livingstone, chief executive and co-founder of Animal Experience International, a Canadian company that specializes in ethical animal travel, said tour operators should not steer travelers away from a country’s darker traditions or more disquieting customs. Exposure is a form of education and can be an essential agent of change.

“The whale hunt is extremely distressing to witness, but turning away doesn’t help the animals who are killed, and it doesn’t help give voice to those who take part in the hunt,” she said by email. “Shielding passengers only allows them to be ignorant to both the traditional culture of the place they are visiting and to the sentient beings who are being slaughtered.”

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Cruise line apologizes after dozens of whales slaughtered in front of passengers

The Faroe Islands hunt on average 800 pilot whales annually.

LONDON -- A cruise line has apologized to over 1,000 of its passengers after one of its ships arrived at port in the middle of a whale hunt where dozens of the marine mammals were being slaughtered.

Ambassador Cruise Lines confirmed on Thursday that the arrival of their ship Ambition in Torshavn in the Faroe Islands -- located between Scotland, Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic -- “coincided with the culmination of a hunt of 40+ pilot whales in the port area,” according to the cruise line.

MORE: Dolphin hunting season begins again in Japanese cove made famous by bloody documentary

“We were incredibly disappointed that this hunt occurred at the time that our ship was in port. We strongly object to this outdated practice, and have been working with our partner, ORCA, a charity dedicated to studying and protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises in UK and European waters, to encourage change since 2021,” Ambassador said following the arrival of their ship in the Torshavn port area on the southern part of the main island.

The government of the Faroe Islands, however, has been clear on their stance of the whale hunting for several years.

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“As has been the case for centuries, whaling still occurs in the Faroe Islands today,” a statement from the government of the estimated 53,000 people on the island said explaining the values of the whaling hunt. “The Faroese have eaten pilot whale meat and blubber since they first settled the islands over a millenia ago. Today, as in times past, the whale drive is a community activity open to all, while also well organised on a community level and regulated by national laws.”

In their apology, Ambassador said that sustainability is one of the cruise line’s “core values” and that the company fully appreciates that “witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests onboard. Accordingly, we would like to sincerely apologise to them for any undue upset.”

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“We are dedicated to supporting ORCA in their endeavours to collect data and to monitor whales and dolphins and we are extremely disappointed that this has happened after weeks of trying to open constructive dialogue with the Faroese government and Visit Faroes on these issues,” Christian Verhounig, Ambassador’s CEO, said in their statement. “We continue to educate our guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat and stand against any profiteering from commercial whaling and dolphin hunts.”

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But the Faroe Island’s government said that the hunt is part of the island’s sustainability efforts and that “the meat and blubber from the hunt is distributed equally among those who have participated … Hunting and killing methods have been improved to ensure as little harm to the whales as possible. All hunters must now obtain a hunting license in order to kill a whale.”

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Although pilot whale meat and blubber contains much protein, iron, carnitine and vitamins, the Faroe Islands government said there are concerns that the high levels of mercury and PCBs in the whales can have detrimental health effects and said that “ocean pollution by heavy industries and industrialized agriculture has resulted in the pollution of whales.”

“Records of all pilot whale hunts have been kept since 1584 and the practice is deemed sustainable, as there are an estimated 778,000 whales in the eastern North Atlantic region,” the government continued. “Approximately 100,000 swim close to the Faroe Islands, and the Faroese hunt on average 800 pilot whales annually.”

In 2023 alone, the Faroe Islands has registered 646 whale killings to date, including the 78 on Sunday when the Ambition arrived.

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78 whales killed in front of cruise ship passengers in the Faroe Islands

By Aliza Chasan

July 13, 2023 / 3:24 PM EDT / CBS News

Cruise ship passengers arrived in the Faroe Islands as dozens of whales were killed as part of a traditional hunt, the cruise line confirmed Thursday. 

Ambassador Cruise Line apologized to the passengers of the ship Ambition. Passengers were there as 78 pilot whales , which are techncally one of the largest members of the dolphin family, were killed in the port area on Sunday.

Hunting whales and dolphins is a common and regulated practice in the islands, which are a self-governing, semi-autonomous region of Denmark. The local government describes the pilot whale hunt , also known as "grind," as "an ancient and integral part of Faroese food culture."

"We strongly object to this outdated practice and have been working with our partner, ORCA, the marine conservation charity dedicated to studying and protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises in UK and European waters, to encourage change since 2021," a spokesperson for the cruise line said.

The killing of more than 1,400 dolphins in the region sparked outrage in 2021. At the time, the chairman of the Faroese Whalers Association told the BBC that while the number of dolphins killed was excessive, it was accidental. 

"It was a big mistake," he told the BBC. "When the pod was found, they estimated it to be only 200 dolphins." 

The Faroese catch an average of 600 pilot whales annually, according to government data. From 2000 to 2020, no more than 773 white-sided dolphins were caught in a single year. 

"Whaling in the Faroe Islands is conducted in accordance with international law and globally recognized principles of sustainable development," according to the island's government website. "It is sustainable and fully regulated, with a strong emphasis on animal welfare, and a requirement today for participants to be licensed to use the mandatory methods and equipment.  Whale drives only take place in bays that are officially approved for the purpose, and only schools of whales found in close proximity to land, usually within one nautical mile, are driven ashore."

Whatever is caught during the hunt is distributed to island residents for free. 

Ambassador Cruise Lne said the company told "guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat and stand against any profiteering from commercial whaling and dolphin hunts." 

Conservationists from ORCA were on board the shp as it arrived in the Faroe Islands. According to the organization, small boats and jet skies were used to herd the pilot whales into shallow waters. The whales were hauled ashore and killed.

"It defies belief that the Faroese authorities allowed this activity to take place in clear sight of a cruise ship packed with passengers sitting in dock," ORCA CEO Sally Hamilton said. "On one hand, they promote their pristine environment and spectacular wildlife while simultaneously wielding gaff hooks and lances to kill whales and dolphins. It's almost as if they are flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists."

Long-finned pilot whales live 35-60 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They grow to be 19-25 feet long and weigh 2,900 to 5,000 pounds. The species is threatened by whaling, entanglement in fishing gear, disease and contaminants in ocean waters, NOAA says.

Aliza Chasan is a digital producer at 60 Minutes and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.

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Ambassador Cruise line apologises after passengers see dozens of whales being slaughtered

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Ambassador Cruise Lines has issued an apology to passengers after one of its ships docked in the Faroe Islands , where dozens of pilot whales were being slaughtered.

The luxury cruise line shared in a statement on Thursday (13 July) that the arrival of their ship, the Ambition, in Torshavn in the Faroe Islands – which is located between Scotland, Iceland, and Norway – “coincided with the culmination of a hunt” of more than 40 pilot whales, the company said on Twitter.

The British cruise liner acknowledged that “witnessing this local event” was “distressing” for the majority of 1,000 passengers onboard the Ambition, some of those being conservationists with ORCA – a UK-based marine life advocacy group that seeks to protect whales and dolphins.

“We were incredibly disappointed that this hunt occurred at the time that our ship was in port,” they said. “We strongly object to this outdated practice, and have been working with our partner, ORCA, a charity dedicated to studying and protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises in UK and European waters, to encourage change since 2021.”

Christian Verhounig, Ambassador CEO, said: “We are extremely disappointed that this has happened after weeks of trying to open constructive dialogue with the Faroese government and Visit Faroes on these issues. We continue to educate our guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat and stand against any profiteering from commercial whaling and dolphin hunts.”

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Seventy eight long-finned pilot whales, a species of dolphin, were killed near Torshavn on Sunday, Yahoo News Australia reported. The controversial practice, called Grindadráp, saw Faroese locals herding the pilot whales to shore with over 40 small boats and jet-skis. ORCA confirmed that a group of 150 people then hauled the animals ashore with hooks and slaughtered them with lances.

The hunt lasted a total of 20 minutes, while some of the pilot whales, including a calf, took over 30 seconds to die.

Long-finned pilot whales are a type of dolphin that dwell in deep temperate to subpolar oceanic waters, such as the Southern Hemisphere or the North Atlantic. They live in close-knit pods of up to 20 pilot whales. Although they’re not endangered, long-finned pilot whales are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Whaling in the Faroe Islands – known as “grind” for short – is a longstanding tradition that has taken place for over 800 years, with multiple hunts occurring each year. The arrival of the Ambassador’s Ambition cruise ship in Torshavn coincided with the sixth hunt of 2023, ORCA said.

While the practice has received much criticism from animal rights activists and conservationists, the Faroese government has argued the killings provide food for local communities and are fully regulated by law. “The average catch of around 800 whales a year is not considered to have a significant impact on the abundance of pilot whales, which are estimated at around 778,000,” the government previously said.

Others have called on cruise ship companies to boycott the Faroe Islands in order to end the killing of whales in the area. “Cruise companies need to take a stand in support of ocean wildlife and remove the Faroe Islands from itineraries,” Rob Read, the chief operations officer at Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK, told Yahoo News Australia . “Their continued visits to the Faroe Islands inadvertently supports the abhorrent practice that is the Grindadráp.”

In July 2022, nearly 100 bottlenose dolphins were killed in the Faroe Islands , the largest hunt of bottlenose dolphins in more than 120 years.

Meanwhile in September 2021, a record 1,428 Atlantic white-sided dolphins were slaughtered in a single hunt. In response, the government of the Faroe Islands led a review of dolphin hunts and limited the practice to 500 dolphins for the current year.

Conservationists have long been lobbying the UK government to halt trade with the Faroe Islands as the killings continue. However, ministers ignored their calls in February last year when they signed a £5.5m agreement allowing UK and Faroese vessels to fish in areas of each other’s waters.

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78 pilot whales were slaughtered near a cruise ship carrying marine conservationists

A cruise line is apologizing to passengers who witnessed the killing of dozens of pilot whales near their docked ship this week in the Faroe Islands.

Passengers aboard the cruise ship Ambition, owned by the U.K.-based Ambassador Cruise Line, had just arrived Sunday in the port of Tórshavn in the Danish territory when they caught the spectacle, part of a long-standing and highly scrutinized local tradition.

Among those passengers were conservationists with ORCA, a marine life advocacy group that seeks to protect whales and dolphins in European waters. Since 2021, Ambassador has paid for ORCA staff to join their cruises in order to educate tourists on marine wildlife and collect data on the animals.

In an account shared by ORCA and confirmed by Ambassador, the conservationists said over 40 small boats and jet skis herded the whales to a beach where 150 people worked to haul the animals ashore with hooks and slaughter them with lances.

In total, the hunt lasted about 20 minutes, ORCA said. Some of the animals, which included nine calves, took over 30 seconds to die.

Ambassador Cruise Line said it was "incredibly disappointed" that the hunt unfolded near the ship and that it continues to "strongly object to this practice." The company asks their guests not to support the hunters by purchasing local whale and dolphin meat.

"We fully appreciate that witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests onboard," Ambassador said in a statement to NPR. "Accordingly, we would like to sincerely apologise to them for any undue upset."

A representative for the Faroe Islands government did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on Sunday's hunt.

Long-finned pilot whales , which are technically a species of dolphin, are a medium-sized marine mammal that dwells in the North Atlantic, known for their bulbous head and sickle-shaped flippers. They're not currently listed as an endangered species, but as a sign their population may be on the decline due to human activity, the species is listed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the U.S..

The mammals live in social pods of up to 20 individuals, organized into a larger school of hundreds of animals — a social structure that makes them easy targets for whalers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In the Faroe Islands, the hunting of pilot whales is known as the "grindadrap" or "grind." The Faroese view the tradition as central to their cultural identity and a sustainable way to gather food, according to a local government website.

The government says the killing is not highly commercialized. Each catch is "distributed for free in the local community" but "in some supermarkets and on the dockside, whale meat and blubber is occasionally available for sale."

Multiple hunts can occur throughout the year, and each is carried out by people with a required license and supervised by elected officials. Local legislation stipulates the killing must be carried out as "quickly and efficiently as possible."

The government says the average catch is around 800 animals, an insignificant impact on the overall pilot whale population, which it says is around 778,000 animals.

But a record single-day killing of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in 2021 brought the practice into intensified scrutiny. The chairman of the Faroese Whalers Association told the BBC that the size of that killing was purely accidental.

That Sunday's slaughter unfolded near the cruise ship made it seem as if the whalers were "flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists," many of whom were hoping to catch a glimpse of marine life in the wild, ORCA CEO Sally Hamilton said.

"It defies belief that the Faroese authorities allowed this activity to take place in clear sight of a cruise ship packed with passengers," she wrote in a statement shared with NPR. "At some point, the Faroese authorities will have to decide if its marine life is a more attractive tourist proposition when it is alive than when it is being killed."

The cruise ship was docked for a stop in Tórshavn, the main harbor of the 18-island territory between Iceland and the Shetland Islands. While the local government has invested more into its tourism sector, fishing and marine-related industries still remain the region's top economic driver .

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Marine conservationists were among cruise ship passengers who witnessed 78 whales being slaughtered

• Conservationists were among the cruise passengers who witnessed the slaughter of 78 pilot whales.
• Ambassador Cruise Lines apologized after it docked during a whale hunt in the Faroe Islands.
• Campaign group ORCA suggested Faroese authorities taunted tourists with the timing of the hunt.

Marine conservationists were among the horrified cruise ship passengers who witnessed the slaughtering of 78 whales last week.

Ambassador Cruise Line issued an apology on Twitter after its Ambition ship docked in the Faroe Islands at the same time a group carried out its regular hunting of pilot whales. The islands are a self-governing part of Denmark about halfway between Iceland and Norway.

The cruise docked in the Faroese port of Torshavn last Sunday as locals carried out their sixth hunt of the year. Nine calves no older than a month were among the 78 whales slaughtered, conservation and campaign group ORCA said.

In a press release , ORCA said some of its conservationists were on the ship with tourists when the killings took place.

ORCA said its conservationists witnessed more than 40 small boats and jet skis herd the whales into shallow waters before 150 hunters slaughtered the 78 whales with hooks and "killing lances" in 20 minutes.

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The group said some of the pilot whales, including a calf, took more than 30 seconds to die.

Sally Hamilton, the CEO of ORCA, said in a statement it "defies belief" that Faroese authorities allowed the hunt to take place in the view of the cruise ship.

"It's almost as if they are flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists," she said.

According to Visit Faroe Islands , about 800 whales are killed annually and meat is distributed among those who participate.

Islanders say the practice has been deemed sustainable due to the whale population in the area.

In a statement shared with ORCA, Ambassador said while the practice was a traditional way of sustaining communities, it had now become "outdated" and had instead turned commercial, with whale meat being sold in local supermarkets. 

"We are utterly opposed to the commercial hunting of whales and dolphins in the Faroes, or anywhere else come to that," Ambassador said.

Visit Faroe Islands didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.

• Main content

'Don't Visit Faroe': Campaign launched to boycott island over controversial whale and dolphin hunt

A cruise ship recently stumbled upon the spectacle, with horrified tourists seeing seas turned crimson with blood.

A campaign was launched on Thursday to boycott the Faroe Islands over their highly controversial slaughter of pilot whales and dolphins. 

' Dont Visit Faroe Islands ' wants tourists to skip the small North Atlantic islands in a bid to pressure the government to end its annual hunts of marine life. 

"We're hoping many supporters can join us as we try to encourage people to halt their visits to the Faroe islands and put pressure on the Faroese government to ban hunts once and for all," campaigner Maissa Rababy told Euronews. 

"These hunts aren't advertised in the travel brochures...  We want to make sure everyone knows what is happening." 

Whale hunts on the Faroe Islands are considered by animal rights activists as cruel. 

They involve corralling pods of highly-intelligent, social creatures into a bay with jet skis and boats, where they are then dragged onto the beach and killed one by one - while the others await their grim fate. 

Defenders say the practice is an integral part of island life and resist what they see as outside interference. Islanders largely support the “grindadráp” (as it is called in Faroese).

Campaigner Rababy said they decided to begin their boycott initiative after a tourist cruise ship recently stumbled upon the spectacle when it docked into the Faroe Islands, with hundreds of horrified onlookers seeing waters turn red with blood.

The group behind the campaign, Only One, launched a petition in 2021 to end the practice after 1,400 dolphins were killed in a single hunt, it claimed.

It has been signed by 368,000 people so far from around the world.

Following this campaign, Rababy pointed out that local authorities put in place quotas on how many animals could be killed each season.

But she says campaigners were disappointed by the move, with quotas allegedly too large.

In a statement sent to Euronews in May, Faroe's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Industry and Trade said whale drives are "well organised and fully regulated."

Evidence of whaling on the Faroe Islands dates back to 800 AD, with hunts featuring predominantly in Faroese culture, art and literature.

Some see foreign campaigns against it as a form of cultural imperialism imposed on their small population of 50,000.

Anti-hunt activist Rababy pushed back against this, saying "we're not attacking the island's population". 

"This campaign is about stopping a practice that we think is outdated and is hurting people, the environment and special species in the ocean," she told Euronews. 

Mercury levels within marine animals have been rising over the decades, leading to a number of health consequences - particularly for the development of children. 

People who consume whale or dolphin meat have an increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, and even Parkinson’s disease, according to health experts . 

"We're hoping to spark a conversation again with the Faroese government to find a better solution for these animals," said Rababy, suggesting the hunts could be putting the species in jeopardy. 

Pilot whales - of which 700 are killed on average by islanders each year, according to the marine conservation organisation Ocean Care - are not a protected species. 

In its statement for Euronews, the Island's Foreign Ministry said: "The pilot whale catches in the Faroe Islands are sustainable", adding it "has long since been internationally recognised" as so.

"Hunts are deeply cruel... We want the Faroese government to listen", sad Rababy. "It's time to revise an outdated practice and find a way to collaborate for the health of the oceans together."

The Faroe Islands are an independent territory of Denmark, some 300km north of the United Kingdom.

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Passengers witness 78 pilot whales slaughtered during cruise

The Faroe Islands have long been criticized for allowing the practice of slaughtering whales for their meat and blubber.

Passengers on board a cruise off the coast of the Faroe Islands were subjected to a "horrifying sight" of a local whale hunt that resulted in the slaughtering of 78 pilot whales. 

Conservationists with ORCA first reported the sighting and Ambassador Cruise Line confirmed the incident. ORCA claimed that locals were "flaunting the hunt."

ORCA said that passengers could see a flotilla of over 40 boats herding the pilot whales as about 150 people hauled the whales on shore to slaughter them. ORCA estimated that nine tiny calves were among those slaughtered. 

“It defies belief that the Faroese authorities allowed this activity to take place in clear sight of a cruise ship packed with passengers sitting in dock," ORCA CEO Sally Hamilton said in a statement. "On one hand, they promote their pristine environment and spectacular wildlife while simultaneously wielding gaff hooks and lances to kill whales and dolphins. It’s almost as if they are flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists.”

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Ambassador Cruise Line said it "strongly objects" to what it calls an "outdated process."

“We are dedicated to supporting ORCA in their endeavours to collect data and to monitor whales and dolphins and we are extremely disappointed that this has happened after weeks of trying to open constructive dialogue with the Faroese government and Visit Faroes on these issues," said Ambassador Cruise Line CEO Christian Verhounig. "We continue to educate our guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat and stand against any profiteering from commercial whaling and dolphin hunts."

Faroe Islands officials  say the process of slaughtering pilot whales is regulated and used to provide food for residents. The government says whale hunts are not part of a ritual. 

"The catch is distributed for free in the local community where a catch takes place," a government website says. "This traditional community-based sharing of catches also ensures that the larger the catch, the more people get a share of it. However, in some supermarkets and on the dockside, whale meat and blubber is occasionally available for sale."

Visit Faroe Islands estimates Faroese hunt on average 800 pilot whales annually.

ORCA and Ambassador have a partnership where ORCA brings its conservationists on board Ambassador cruises to conduct sightings. 

"Our partnership with Ambassador puts whale and dolphin conservation at the heart of so much of what the company are doing, and it’s given us unprecedented opportunities to not only inspire guests about the world of these wonderful animals, but also to take direct and meaningful action together to help safeguard them for future generations," ORCA director of fundraising and operations Steve Jones said in February.

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Ship passengers traumatized as 78 dolphins killed in whaling tradition.

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Passengers aboard a luxury cruise ship watched in horror Sunday as their vessel docked at a small island where locals yielding knives and metal rods were killing wild dolphins as part of a centuries-old mass hunting tradition.

The North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Faroe Islands was red with the blood of 78 long-finned pilot whales that were hunted by men in the island’s capital of Torshavn, Yahoo News Australia reported .

As the Faroese tradition of grindadráp took place Sunday, passengers aboard a docked Ambassador Cruise Line ship were horrified to watch how locals have harvested their food for centuries.

The British cruise ship operator has since issued an apology on Twitter , noting they were “disappointed that this hunt occurred at the time that our ship was in port.”

“We strongly object to this outdated practice,” the cruise operator added, referencing the mass hunting tradition, which has long sparked outrage among conservationists.

Warning: Graphic images

Grindadráp, or grind for short, occurs each summer and involves the mass killing of sea mammals like the long-finned pilot whale — which is a dolphin, despite its name.

Images of the event showed dolphins of all ages drenched in blood on the shore and stuffed in bins. Men leaving the scene were photographed covered in blood and carrying knives.

Hunters on boats began herding the dolphins around 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Soon after, locals on shore took out their knives to begin hunting the animals, witnesses told Yahoo.

All of the sea mammals were killed in 20 minutes, according to witnesses.

While the practice is largely opposed by international animal rights organizations, locals see the importance in sourcing their own, natural food.

“We are very proud of this practice and we will continue as long as we decide,”  Faroese whale expert Bjarni Mikkelsen told Yahoo in May.

The British cruise liner received a mixed response to its apology to stunned passengers — with some slamming the operator for criticizing local tradition while others called for a boycott of the island altogether.

“You have done the unforgivable — as a guest spit into the face of the host,” one person commented in response to the apology.

“If you don’t care for our culture or way of living why are you even coming to our islands?,” another asked.

The cruise line argues boycotting the island wouldn’t make a difference to local attitudes about the mass killing of sea mammals.

The Faroe Islands have been a semi-autonomous region since 1948 and are not part of the European Union, allowing whaling traditions to continue without restrictions.

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July 14, 2023 1:13 PM

• Emily Olson

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A cruise line is apologizing to passengers who witnessed the killing of dozens of pilot whales near their docked ship this week in the Faroe Islands.

Passengers aboard the cruise ship Ambition, owned by the U.K.-based Ambassador Cruise Line, had just arrived Sunday in the port of Tórshavn in the Danish territory when they caught the spectacle, part of a long-standing and highly scrutinized local tradition.

Among those passengers were conservationists with ORCA, a marine life advocacy group that seeks to protect whales and dolphins in European waters. Since 2021, Ambassador has paid for ORCA staff to join their cruises in order to educate tourists on marine wildlife and collect data on the animals.

In an account shared by ORCA and confirmed by Ambassador, the conservationists said over 40 small boats and jet skis herded the whales to a beach where 150 people worked to haul the animals ashore with hooks and slaughter them with lances.

In total, the hunt lasted about 20 minutes, ORCA said. Some of the animals, which included nine calves, took over 30 seconds to die.

Ambassador Cruise Line said it was "incredibly disappointed" that the hunt unfolded near the ship and that it continues to "strongly object to this practice." The company asks their guests not to support the hunters by purchasing local whale and dolphin meat.

"We fully appreciate that witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests onboard," Ambassador said in a statement to NPR. "Accordingly, we would like to sincerely apologise to them for any undue upset."

A representative for the Faroe Islands government did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on Sunday's hunt.

Long-finned pilot whales , which are technically a species of dolphin, are a medium-sized marine mammal that dwells in the North Atlantic, known for their bulbous head and sickle-shaped flippers. They're protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act , but not currently listed as an endangered species.

The mammals live in social pods of up to 20 individuals, organized into a larger school of hundreds of animals — a social structure that makes them easy targets for whalers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In the Faroe Islands, the hunting of pilot whales is known as the "grindadrap" or "grind." The Faroese view the tradition as central to their cultural identity and a sustainable way to gather food, according to a local government website.

The government says the killing is not highly commercialized. Each catch is "distributed for free in the local community" but "in some supermarkets and on the dockside, whale meat and blubber is occasionally available for sale."

Multiple hunts can occur throughout the year, and each is carried out by people with a required license and supervised by elected officials. Local legislation stipulates the killing must be carried out as "quickly and efficiently as possible."

The government says the average catch is around 800 animals, an insignificant impact on the overall pilot whale population, which it says is around 778,000 animals.

But a record single-day killing of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in 2021 brought the practice into intensified scrutiny. The chairman of the Faroese Whalers Association told the BBC that the size of that killing was purely accidental.

That Sunday's slaughter unfolded near the cruise ship made it seem as if the whalers were "flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists," many of whom were hoping to catch a glimpse of marine life in the wild, ORCA CEO Sally Hamilton said.

"It defies belief that the Faroese authorities allowed this activity to take place in clear sight of a cruise ship packed with passengers," she wrote in a statement shared with NPR. "At some point, the Faroese authorities will have to decide if its marine life is a more attractive tourist proposition when it is alive than when it is being killed."

The cruise ship was docked for a stop in Tórshavn, the main harbor of the 18-island territory between Iceland and the Shetland Islands. While the local government has invested more into its tourism sector, fishing and marine-related industries still remain the region's top economic driver .

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org .

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Cruise ship passengers horrified as Faroe Islands pilot whales slaughtered in front of them

Cruise ship passengers in the Faroe Islands were subjected to the horrifying sight of a pilot whale hunt (the so-called grind) being carried out in front of them as their ship sat in the port of Torshavn on Sunday July 9. UK whale and dolphin charity ORCA, who had Ocean Conservationists on board the ship, said the Faroes were “flaunting the hunt” in front of tourists, many of whom had specifically come to enjoy seeing whales and dolphins in their natural environment.

The arrival of Ambassador’s Ambition cruise ship in Torshavn in the Faroe Islands coincided with the culmination of the sixth hunt of 2023, resulting in the slaughter of 78 pilot whales in the port area, including 9 tiny calves estimated as being no more than a month old.

Passengers watched on in horror as a flotilla of 40+ small boats and jet-skis drove and herded the pilot whales into shallow waters. A group of 150 people then hauled the animals ashore with hooks and others armed with killing lances slaughtered the animals in the space of 20 minutes. ORCA observed that some of the pilot whales, including a calf, took over 30 seconds to die.

Sally Hamilton CEO of ORCA said; “It defies belief that the Faroese authorities allowed this activity to take place in clear sight of a cruise ship packed with passengers sitting in dock. On one hand, they promote their pristine environment and spectacular wildlife while simultaneously wielding gaff hooks and lances to kill whales and dolphins. It’s almost as if they are flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists.”

“We shall never stop seeking the change that is necessary here, and the strong partnerships with forward-thinking companies like Ambassador Cruise Line will enable us to continue evidencing whale and dolphin populations in this little-studied region. At some point, the Faroese authorities will have to decide if its marine life is a more attractive tourist proposition when it is alive than when it is being killed.”

Ambassador said; “We have been working with our partner ORCA, a charity dedicated to studying and protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises in UK and European waters, to encourage change since 2021. We are utterly opposed to the commercial hunting of whales and dolphins in the Faroes, or anywhere else come to that. While traditional hunts of this type have taken place for many years in the Faroe Islands to sustain local communities, we strongly object to this outdated practice, which we believe is now becoming commercial, with meats sold in local supermarkets, for example.

“Sustainability is one of Ambassador Cruise Line’s core values, and we fully appreciate that witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests onboard.”

Christian Verhounig, Ambassador CEO, said: “We are dedicated to supporting ORCA in their endeavours to collect data and to monitor whales and dolphins and we are extremely disappointed that this has happened after weeks of trying to open constructive dialogue with the Faroese government and Visit Faroes on these issues. We continue to educate our guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat and stand against any profiteering from commercial whaling and dolphin hunts.”

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