In a slow, cruel hunt that even seasoned whalers have deemed unethical, an entire super pod of at least 1,428 white-sided dolphins was killed on the 12th of September on the shores of the Faroe Islands.
The massive pod was driven by a coordinated fleet of boats and jet skis onto the beach after which the dolphins were killed one by one. The panicked dolphins, including pregnant females and calves, were involved in a hunt that lasted several hours and is said to have extended over more than 45 kilometers before they were left to suffocate on land as the vastly outnumbered whalers struggled to kill them all. The horrific event that took place on September 12th was one of the largest single massacres in the island’s history, drawing the total number of cetaceans killed this year to 2,043.