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Graphic Video Shows Faroe Islands Whale Slaughter

Several members of the conservation group Sea Shepherd were arrested trying to block the whale kill, a traditional event on the islands which goes back hundreds of years.
Imagen vía Sea Shephard

The blue waters near the picturesque village of Bøur, a part of the Faroe Islands archipelago located off the west coast of Norway, turned a bright red yesterday with the blood of two hundred slaughtered whales.

The hunt, known as grindadráp in Faroese, took place at the Bøur and Tórshavn beaches, activist group Sea Shepherd reported, and is an annual event that has been practiced for hundreds of years on the islands.

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A video released by Sea Shepherd shows the whale killing.

The hunt started at around 2:00 pm local time, when a massive pod of around 150 pilot whales was spotted near the archipelago. After a flotilla of small boats drove them to Bøur, a waiting crowd dragged the animals onto the beach and slaughtered them using lances. Five Sea Shepherd crew members who tried to defend the whales were arrested.

The second hunt began around 10.30 pm near the capital of Tórshavn, where another fifty whales were killed.

Sea Shepherd reported that Danish Navy vessels HDMS Triton and HDMS Knud Rasmussen were both in the region at the time of the Bøur slaughter, and the event proceeded with the full consent of the Danish Navy. The Faroe Islands are a protectorate of Denmark.

"How Denmark — an anti-whaling member nation of the European Union, subject to laws prohibiting the slaughter of cetaceans — can attempt to justify its collaboration in this slaughter is incomprehensible," Wyanda Lublink, captain of a Sea Shepherd boat involved in the protests, said in a statement.

Watch the Motherboard documentary The Grind: Whaling in the Faroe Islands:

Related: Japan Is Going to Kill Thousands of Whales No Matter What Other Nations Say