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I bet you can hear them scream when you chop them with a knife, when they thrash around hysterically in a cove whose water turns red with their blood, these highly intelligent animals. On a group of self-governing islands under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark, a slaughter takes place.

Called the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic halfway between Scotland and Iceland, in a ritual whose purpose is not for survival, a group of what literally amount to village idiots get together in the summer each year to massacre whales.

And dolphins.

They claim it's for food because they have a hard time growing anything and there's no Starbucks on the island.

This is how it works. A group of power boats (hey if you're going to slaughter whales, you don't want to do it the old hard way in rowboats) circle the whales and then herd them into shore where they are hooked with a gaff, dragged to shore and stabbed or slashed to death.

Fun, huh?

That's it! It isn't like bullfighting where at least the bull has a chance to gore the matador.

Big brave intelligent Viking-descended men. This guy's mother-in-law stands on the shore scratching her backside watching with pride as Gunnar, Erik and Thor slaughter tiny pilot whales. They do this sans helmets with cow horns mounted on them and fur skins and clubs and shields, blowing into trumpet conch shells----but they might as well have these.

The spectacle is ostensibly held to recount the country's days as a maritime and whaling culture, but in reality perhaps to kill something for the sake of killing, and the glory of spilling blood.

"Yaaa-Suuure! Tornal-fornal-tornal (I don't speak Danish)."

These morons then proudly line their catch of the day up on the beach, the bodies of whales and dolphins, chopped and mutilated, parked side-by-side like used cars on a lot. The morons pose for pictures with the slaughtered cetaceans, keepsakes they can show their grandchildren that perhaps some day will be a way of recounting that whales once existed.

How can I shame them in this column? I could say these guys are yellow. I don't truly believe this, because if I walked to the bar on their island where they hang out and guzzle beer, and picked a fight, some of them would likely take me up on it. I do believe it's possible to be a coward by trying in this way to show you're a brave man.

I could call them stupid. I don't believe that either. I think they know how to make a living on a remote island and I think they know what they do and why they do.

I could call them selfish. I don't believe they are as materialistic as most Americans are because they don't have freeways and a Wal-Mart.

Then what are they? They're a quirk, a throwback to an age when waste

Olavur! How badly do you need a whale hamburger?

was seen as conquest, when elements and nature were things to be conquered just like everything and everyone else. If you're a Viking, you kill the Saxon sonofabitch over there in Ireland, you kill the deer, you slaughter the pig. You hunt this and that, and the whale, whose jaw bone you then mount on your mud hut.

If you can kill this helpless, bleeding, thrashing whale or dolphin, you can keep alive the glories of when you were a feared Norseman, when you pillaged Britain, when you sacked Normandy, when you took the Book of Kells covered with jewels and ripped the cover off for the jewels and tossed the rest of the book (because you can't read) in a bog.

When you kill this whale for no good legitimate reason, you're keeping alive the ignorance, the violence, you're recalling when you were in the world (most of what was known of it at the time) a factor. Instead of just a local yokel cooped up on a crummy island.

Shame on Denmark for allowing this insane ritual to proceed. Actually, the Faroe Islanders govern themselves separately, and make their laws, but Denmark should put pressure on them to stop.

Olavur Sjuroaberg (I couldn't fit in all the hyphens accompanying his name), a spokesman for the Faroese Pilot Whale's Association, or instead of spokesman, it might be accomplice, said "I'm sure that no one who kills for food is unmoved by what he does. You want it done quickly and with as little suffering as possible for the animal."

How nice!

C'mon Olavur! How badly do you really need a whale hamburger? When it comes to killing whales and dolphins, I'm sure that when you gaff a helpless animal from your power boat, drag it ashore and slash it with a knife, that the suffering is minimal.

In 2008, medical officers of the Faroe Islands recommended that pilot whales no longer be considered fit for human consumption because of pollutant toxins in the meat.

Go ahead Olavur. Have a bite.

Web Link:
Paul Watson, ending the slaughter of whales...