Whale hunting in the Faroe Islands | DW Documentary

Whales and dolphins. Around the world, they inspire people. These animals are intelligent and social. Encounters with them are described as transformative. But in Europe, there are also people who kill whales and dolphins.

As part of the so-called Grindadráp, or whale hunt, hundreds of pilot whales and other types of dolphins are slaughtered every year in the autonomous Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, which belong to Denmark. In September 2021, more than 1,400 animals were killed in a single day.
"When I saw these pictures, I was horrified," says journalist Christian Blenker. So, he goes in search of Faroe Island whalers. He wants to know: "Why do men with knives and harpoons still go into the water today and cause this bloodbath?"

Pilot whale hunting is not about commercial exploitation. The hunters and their families divide the meat among themselves and eat it, although consumption is discouraged by authorities because of the meat’s high mercury content.

For this documentary, Christian Blenker traveled to the Faroe Islands with filmmaker Matthias Sdun. Today, he has the answer to his question - and it wasn’t the one he was expecting.

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