More than 500 dolphins slaughtered on Faroe Islands since hunt resumed last month

Warning: This article contains images of dead animals

Over 500 dolphins have been slaughtered on the Faroe Islands since its hunt resumed last month, an environmental non-profit has said.

The autonomous Danish territory practices a Faroese tradition called Grindadráp or the Grind, whereby various species of whales and dolphins are herded into shallow bays to be beached and butchered with knives.

The Islands were forced to provisionally limit their controversial hunt in July to 500 a year after an unusually high number, 1,400, were killed in 2022, prompting outcry from animal rights activists who branded the tradition brutal and barbaric.

But locals claim the sea mammals have fed them for centuries.

According to Russell Fielding, an US academic who studies grindadráp, it "has provided meat and blubber for human consumption since at least the late 16th century" and is viewed by many as a key part of Faroese culture.

On Wednesday, June 14, 447 long-finned pilot whales - a species of dolphin - were killed in two separate hunts, The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society confirmed to ITV News.

They were the fourth and fifth Grindadráp hunts of 2023 so far - the first was on May 8, where 12 were slaughtered.

Footage and pictures of the hunt emerge regularly on social media, showing rows of mammals in pools of blood.

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