Faroe Islands: 706 dolphins killed in one day, the biggest massacre in history

More than 700 dolphins were slaughtered on May 27 in the Faroe Islands, a figure that exceeds two-thirds of all marine mammals killed in the year 2025. During operations, two Sea Shepherd crew members were arrested while documenting the hunts.

Three dolphin hunts, known locally as "grinds" took place simultaneously on the archipelago, some 320 kilometers north of Scotland. Hundreds of dolphins were driven ashore and killed with spears and knives in scenes of unprecedented violence.

A total of 706 animals were killed, 406 in the capital of Tórshavn alone. An unprecedented massacre, without parallel in recent Faroese history.

Operations quickly turned chaotic, with the hunters themselves admitting that they had run out of spiral spears, the tool required by law to kill cetaceans. As a result, many animals were killed with knives alone, prolonging their agony until they bled to death. According to some accounts, the lack of equipment and personnel also led to even more brutal acts: dolphins crushed against rocks, hit by boats or seriously injured by motor propellers.

In the midst of the carnage, two activists from the environmental NGO Sea Shepherd were arrested by the police, accused of obstructing the hunts, a complaint lodged directly by the hunters. The organization categorically rejects these accusations, and claims that its members were merely documenting what was happening. Both now face expulsion from the archipelago.

What happened in the Faroes is not simply a matter of tradition versus modernity, or a conflict between cultures with incompatible sensibilities. It's something more subtle, more disturbing: the demonstration that a practice can outlive its own raison d'être.

When a slaughter becomes chaotic, improvised and the agony drags on, there's little left to hold on to: neither the need for food, nor ritual mastery, nor even the respect, however debatable, that we should have for any act that takes life. All that's left is raw violence, documented and then censored.

Arresting those who film does not make what was filmed disappear. It erases, at best, the last justifications.

Source : SeaSheperd