The Sustainability Myth: Why the Grindadráp Is Not What Faroese Authorities Claim

As of July 20, 2025, at least 520 long-finned pilot whales have been killed in the Faroe Islands across five grindadráp hunts. Among the dead: pregnant females, unborn calves, and young whales who hadn’t yet reached maturity. This year’s hunts don’t just raise ethical concerns, they challenge  the assertion that the grindadráp is sustainable.

Pilot whales chased onto the beach of Tjørnuvík and killed on July 20th, 2025.

Killing the Future of the Species

Tjørnuvík is one of the Faroe Islands’ most iconic tourist destinations. It hadn’t hosted a grindadráp since 2017. That changed on July 20th when more than 26 boats drove a pod of 117 pilot whales ashore in full view of tourists, locals, and Sea Shepherd volunteers, who managed to reach the site before the police closed off the road. After the slaughter, Sea Shepherd volunteers confirmed:

• 15 of the whales were pregnant, raising the actual death toll to 132 when including unborn calves

• At least 7 were juveniles
  

This single hunt illustrates a larger truth: the grindadráp is not ecologically sound. When a killing method indiscriminately targets pregnant females and young whales who have never reproduced, it prevents the pilot whale population from growing, the very foundation of sustainability.

“The Faroese government insists the grindadráp  is sustainable,” said Valentina Crast, Campaign Director for Sea Shepherd. “But when you destroy mothers and babies en masse, you’re not ‘harvesting a resource’, you’re cutting off its future.”

Documented Toll of 2025 So Far

Across five hunts this year–in Árnafjarðarvík, Leynar, Suðuroy, Bøur, and Tjørnuvík–the pattern is the same: indiscriminate hunting with no consideration for the age, sex, or reproductive status of the cetaceans killed.

• 520 total pilot whales killed

• At least 44 pregnant females killed along with their unborn calves

• These unborn calves are typically onsidered unfit for consumption and  discarded  without being counted in the total killed

• Confirmed juvenile deaths in multiple hunts

• No transparency or accountability from the authorities about the management or monitoring of the hunts.
  

In Leynar alone, 25 pregnant females were killed in a single day. Add 4 more from Bøur, and 15 from Tjørnuvík, and the count of documented unborn calves climbs to at least 44. The actual number is likely higher, given the absence of reporting from other hunts. The principle of sustainability, as affirmed by NAMMCO, requires that natural resources are used at rates that do not exceed the capacity of Earth to replace them. This kind of killing does not meet this definition of sustainability. Long-finned pilot whales reproduce slowly, give birth to a single calf every 3 to 5 years, and live in tight-knit family pods. Each female killed with her unborn calf represents a significant blow to the population. 

Tradition Should Not Bypass Scrutiny

The grindadráp is considered a proud cultural tradition by many Faroese people. But tradition doesn’t grant immunity from scrutiny, especially when the practice in question is killing entire whale pods, including future generations, with motorboats and jetskis.

The way in which cetaceans are treated in the Faroe Islands must evolve in the face of ecological science, ethical reflection, and condemnation by the international community of which the Faroe Islands is very much a part.

It’s Time for the Faroese to Speak Up

If sustainability means preserving a resource for future generations, the grindadráp fails by every measure. It destroys the whales of tomorrow before they’re even born.

As we continue to urge European leaders to challenge the false sustainability narrative, we call on Faroese citizens who have been silently opposed to the grindadráp to speak up and demand an honest conversation about the true cost of this tradition. 

A dead pilot whale killed on July 20th in Tjørnuvík.