In an interview with AFP, Faroese Fisheries Minister Høgni Hoydal insists that the “grindadráp” is ecological and respectful.
Hoydal told AFP: ”We base our whole existence and our modernization as a welfare society and as a part of the world on the sustainable use of the living resources of the sea. The pilot whale has been part of that for more than a thousand years. And we actually see our legislation and our whole system of ‘grind’ catches as the most sustainable use of marine living resources. We have statistics going back 450 years where we can prove that we have never taken more than approximately one percent of the whole population of the ‘grind’ stock in the North Atlantic,” said Hoydal to AFP.
Hoydal continued: ”So when we discuss this, especially with some environmental agencies that are protesting against the ‘grind’, we say ‘well, perhaps this is the example of the most ecological, the most sustainable and the most controlled harvesting of marine resources. If we do not use the whales, we would have to import cattle, meat from cattle, chicken and so on, that are produced under, in my opinion, the worst conditions for animals and not a viable way, in an industrialized way that has led to pollution of our environment and that has led to the destruction of almost every wild living resource of the world.”
So we see ourselves as the leaders of sustainable use of natural resources where we do not over-exploit, where we have huge respect for the animals, where we only take a very small part of a viable population.”
