The fisheries minister said the quota was meant to ensure sustainability. Activists describe decision as ‘farce’
Months after the much-discussed slaughter of more than 1,400 dolphins in the Faroe Islands, the government has set a temporary annual hunting quota of 500 dolphins, in a decision that activists call a “hoax”, as the Guardian newspaper writes.
The Minister of Fisheries of the Faroe Islands, Arni Skaale, said the quota is meant to ensure sustainability. “We have the right to hunt“, he said and added that there is an obligation to protect the country’s resources: “We must use everything sustainably».
The quota is expected to come into effect at the end of July and the government says it will be in place until 2024. Last year’s slaughter was unique in its scale. Since 1996, an average of 270 white dolphins a year have been killed in the Faroe Islands, including 1,428 killed last year. During this period, there were only three other years in which more than 500 dolphins were killed – in 2001, 2002 and 2006.This announcement by the government of the Faroe Islands is a hoax“, she said Sally Hamiltondirector of marine conservation charity ‘Orca’.’The Faroe Islands have become a marine mammal slaughterhouse and the country seems unconcerned about the international outrage and condemnation this is causing».
THE Steve Jones, responsible for ‘Orca’ partnerships, said that the establishment of a quota formalizes a hunt that did not exist as a traditional hunt before and which surveys have shown the Faroese people do not want. “This is a worrying trend towards a hunt that is not sustainable. There is no market for white dolphin meat».
The massive slaughter last year sparked an international outcry. A poll published after the slaughter showed that while 83% of islanders supported the killing of the whales, 53% were opposed to extending the killing to dolphins as well. The government says it will review the quota in 2024, using updated information on dolphin populations from the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission, which represents the four whaling countries in the area: Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
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