Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Death in the Ferocious Isles:
Sea Shepherd under Escort by the Danish Navy
What can be more horrific than the cruel and senseless slaughter of beautiful and intelligent dolphins in Taiji, Japan?
The Academy Award winning film The Cove turned the international spotlight on the bloody carnage of dolphins screaming in pools of their own blood as Japanese fishermen speared them in the shallows of the cove.
What can be more obscenely monstrous than the pitiful screams of impaled dolphins slaughtered without mercy for profit?
There is something worse, far more cruel and wasteful, and it takes place in Europe.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s undercover ship, the Golfo Azzurro, is presently under pursuit by the Danish Navy after a month of covert surveillance operations in the Danish Protectorate of the Faeroe Islands.
It is in these islands, halfway between Scotland and Iceland, that the slaughter of entire pods of pilot whales takes place. Not for profit, but because it is considered by the islanders to be fun to kill them.
They do eat some whale meat but the flesh is so contaminated with mercury that Faeroese children have higher levels of mercury in their bodies than any other people on the planet. But the majority of the whales are killed and dumped at sea, and Sea Shepherd was able to secure evidence of this waste.
The images are nightmarish with fetuses torn from the bodies of mothers, and bodies mutilated with clubs, knives and spears as the islanders drive the defenseless whales up onto rocky beaches killing every one, wiping out entire pods.
Danish navy boards and searches
Golfo Azzurro
In Taiji, experienced fishermen do the killing, but in the Faeroes, even the children are encouraged by men to spear and stab the whales to death; many of these men are drunk and laughing, in what they consider to be a traditional festival of slaughter.
The killing is a violation of the Berne Convention of which Denmark is a signatory, but Denmark claims that the Faeroese are not subject to the law as a protectorate despite receiving all benefits from the European Community.
Sea Shepherd, in partnership with the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, worked earlier this summer with an on-the-ground undercover operative and continues to work at sea onboard the Golfo Azzurro to expose the slaughter and investigate ways to defend the pilot whales from the vicious and lethal assaults by the Faeroese.
Yesterday the Golfo Azzurro’s cover was compromised, and the ship was boarded and searched by police. The vessel was released because no laws had been broken, and it is presently being escorted by the Danish Navy. XXXXX
Sea Shepherd crew members are continuing their patrol, but this time under the watchful eyes and guns of the Danish Navy.
In addition to images that show the indiscriminate nature of the grind, Jonsson was also able to document that several whales had multiple wounds to the head, showing that their deaths were far from painless; and she was able to photograph disturbing images of children partaking in the grind.
Jonsson stated, “I saw children helping their parents cut the whales up. I saw children sitting on whales; their idea of play was to make carvings in the blubber of the dead pilot whales. In the Faeroes, slaughtering cetaceans is definitely a family affair.”
The grind in Leynar took place before the discovery of the Sea Shepherd vessel Golfo Azzuro by Faeroese authorities. Since then, no pilot whales have been killed in the Faeroe Islands. Sea Shepherd is using noise deterrents to keep the pilot whales away from the Ferocious Islands. X
Faeroe Islands: New Photos Show that Bloodbath in Leynar Claimed Four Pregnant Females
On August 5, 2010, a pod of 80 pilot whales was cruelly slaughtered on the beach of Leynar in the Danish Faeroe Islands. Once again, the grind was merciless, as even pregnant females fell victim to the knives of the Faeroe Islanders. Every summer, hundreds—sometimes thousands—of pilot whales are deliberately stranded before their spinal cords are severed with knives in a centuries-old bloody ritual.
Now that Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Undercover Operative, Sofia Jonsson, has safely left the Faeroes, Sea Shepherd is able to release shocking images that show that little has changed in the Faeroe Islands since the grind in Klaksvik that Sea Shepherd documented two weeks earlier.
Sea Shepherd activist and marine biologist Sofia Jonsson switched out with veteran Peter Hammarstedt after his cover was compromised in Klaksvik. When Jonsson heard news of the bloodshed in Leynar, she immediately headed to the town of Kivik, where the cetaceans had been transported.
According to Jonsson, “When I arrived, I noticed that several pregnant females had been killed, but their babies were nowhere to be seen. The fetuses had all been moved into either big plastic containers or black garbage bags. I realized that they were hiding them from any prying eyes. I was still able to count at least four dead babies.”
In Klaksvik, Sea Shepherd was able to document several cases where fetuses had been cut directly out of their mothers’ wombs, left to rot on the docks while still attached to the umbilical cord. The images received worldwide attention.XX
“There was a forklift on the docks that arranged the pilot whales in neat rows,” said Jonsson. “As the whalers were cutting up one of the female pilot whales, they realized that she was pregnant. The whalers asked the forklift driver to turn the cetacean around so that they could cut the fetus out without being seen by the public.”
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-...-100818-1.html
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-...-100825-1.html
•