THE WHALING ( GRINDADRAP) back to mainpage What's a pilot whale ? : please, click here to see his identification sheet (in french) A sea which turns to the red under the stabs of the fishermen which pull down towards the beach Whole crowds of black whales. Inhuman and cruel? Superfluous for the man and dangerous for the natural balance of the population of the oceans? A priori, this massacre is indefensible. Faroese people, which practise this ritual hunting, feels often not understood on this subject. It is not a question here of decreasing the horror which constitutes this hunting. I tried here to retranscribe the thoughts of the populations which I met. The chased animal is called 'globicephala mela'. It is a cetacean weighing 3 tons, completely black. Faroese call it to " grindahvalur ". The methods are humanized. One pulls down a crowd of globicéphales passing near the archipelago. The fishermen are going to guide animals, which move only in group, Towards a beach " of grounding " foreseen by the rule (there is 21 there). The dejection intervenes by the fast section of the vessels of the neck of the globicéphale. One does not kill any more animals with knocks of lance or in high sea. The execution intervenes in some seconds. This hunting constitutes a continuous tradition since the end of the XVI-th century. Contrary to the bullfight, here the execution is not a pure spectacle, It is a ritual sacrifice on which feeds for a long time the archipelago. When the alarm is given, all the village rushes to the beach of grounding. Every inhabitant, even if he didn't take part in the expedition, receives a part of meat and bacon. The animal is of use only to the consumption of Féringien. No export, nor of transformation of the fat in red with lip or cosmetics. It is the activity which, collecting all Féringiens, makes them find a community spirit That the modern life a little killed. Today, the globicéphale, kept dried or frozen, Among largely in the food: 1/4 of the annual consumption of meat. Since 1986 the laws regulated the hunting. As for the natural balance, it's not threatened. Féringiens arrests on average 800 in 2000 pilot-whale a year (no period clarifies of hunting). The number of grips is uneven from one year to the next (1 thousand on average, but 285 only in 1995). There was no " Grind " in 2002. One estimates at more than 100 000 the number of these animals in this region of the world, From 1 to 2 % on the total population is a "taking". One counts more than globicéphales black 900 000 in the world, and his hunting is the object Of a rule which holds in account the suffering of the animal. One thus stays within the framework of a traditional and craft fishing, which is not similar In the indefensible world trade of whales, in which are engaged Norway and Japan. The mixture risks to be too fast established. This fishing is above all a cultural fact. Click to enlarge