Help Stop the Faroe Island Dolphin Drive.

I’m certainly not going to buy any more Legos. Some Danish Companies

"The Cove" has brought worldwide attention to an annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan. But the very same thing is happening in another cove, thousands of miles away in Denmark. (The gruesome photos have circulated in emails — for years.) Tonic investigates what’s being done to stop it and how you can get involved.

For years, a graphic email petition featuring several stomach-churning photos of dolphins and small whales being slaughtered in an island cove has been making the rounds on the Web with the provocative subject line "SHAME ON DENMARK."

The email, written in bad English, claims that an annual dolphin drive in the Faroe Islands, an autonomous province of Denmark situated halfway between Scotland and Iceland, is a cruel ritual intended as nothing more than a right of passage for teenage boys on the cusp of adulthood. Urging readers to "Please hit forward and sign," the campaign also claims that "the dolphin cauldron, like all the other species of dolphins, it’s near extinction."

The photos included with the email depict a horrific scene of water stained deep red with dolphin blood and young, fit men slashing their throats. "In this big celebration, nothing is missing for the fun. Everyone is participating in one way or the other, killing or looking at the cruelty 'supporting like a spectator,'" says the email. If you’ve seen the email (or one of several Facebook pages devoted to the topic), you’ve no doubt recoiled in horror and wondered a) how can something like this actually be happening; and b) what, if anything, is being done to stop it?

Yes, It's True

Dolphin drives, as anyone who has seen the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove now understands, are a means of hunting dolphins by essentially herding them with boats into an enclosed bay where they are then killed one by one with a single slash to the throat, which severs the main artery to the brain. The dolphins are helpless to escape because access to the open ocean is closed off with boats and nets.

However shocking the drives may seem to people who regard dolphins as sentient beings they'd like to swim with and protect, the Faroese hunts present several challenges to conservationists – challenges that can’t be met with a simple email petition.

"It’s an issue that has a lot of nuances that make it difficult to regulate," said Cheryl McCormick, executive director of the American Cetacean Society, the oldest whale conservation organization in the world. "You’re not going to get politicians to care enough to change policy based on an email that circulates around the globe with nameless faces on a mission."

The first hurdle is cultural. The hunts are non-commercial indigenous subsistence hunts with a long history dating back to the 9th century. The whale meat and blubber has long been a staple of the Faroese diet: In the 1970s, school doctors would write notes to parents to make sure that blubber was included as part of a nutritious breakfast.

"Because it's an indigenous subsistence hunt, the meat can't be sold on the market," explains McCormick. "Every family gets an allocation of whale meat that is determined ahead of time by the [Faroese] Minister of Fisheries and that dictates the quota. They have 27 whaling districts, and four sanctioned lagoons where the drives are held."

Not Endangered

The cetaceans killed are actually a combination of long-finned pilot whales, Atlantic white sided dolphins (at left) and bottlenose dolphins (like Flipper). The majority are pilot whales (above, right), which belong to the ocean dolphin family, but are not generally thought of as dolphins because they're bigger (males are 20 feet and females are 16 feet), and their behavior is more like that of larger whales.

As those who've seen The Cove will remember, a major issue in protecting dolphin species is that the International Whaling Commission (IWC) does not establish regulations on the management of "small cetacean" stocks (such as dolphins and porpoises). Even if it did, the IWC's ban on commercial whaling makes allowances for indigenous/aboriginal whaling rights. (The IWC is actually weighing a temporary lift of the 24-year-old global ban on commercial whaling for Japan, Norway and Iceland at its 62nd annual meeting June 21 to 25 in Agadir, Morocco — an initiative headed up by the Bush administration and picked up by Obama's.)

A website maintained by the Faroese Ministries of Fisheries and Foreign Affairs, which addresses widespread criticism of the hunts, acknowledges that while the pilot whale drive is "a dramatic and bloody sight," the throat slashing is the most "efficient and humane" means of killing the animals. The site also says that the whale meat provides about 30 percent of all meat consumed on the islands and is an important part of the economy.

Also, contrary to the "Shame on Denmark" email, the long finned pilot whales are not endangered. The IWC and organizations such as the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (IEC) and the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) have concluded that, based on a population of approximately 778,000 in the eastern North Atlantic and about 100,000 in the vicinity of the Faroe Islands, the annual hunts pose no threat to current stocks. And yet, in 2008, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUNC) lists the long finned pilot whales with "Data Deficient" on its Red List of Threatened Species. In other words, conservationists — forgive the expression — have bigger fish to fry.

"Of course we oppose [the drive] and it's horrible and I've seen the pictures, but we don't do much work in that area," said Lee Poston of the World Wildlife Fund. "Our work is in conservation and endangered species."

Failed Campaign

Despite the uphill battle, anti-whaling groups have nonetheless done their part to stop the Faroese drives. In 1992, the Environmental Investigation Agency, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals formed a coalition called the Pilot Whalers Association to investigate and publicize the hunts. The coalition made undercover visits to the Faroe Islands and led a successful boycott campaign urging Europeans, the islands' biggest import market, to avoid buying Faroese fish products.

The response in the Faroes? An increase in their annual kill.

"Trying to find the right response is a subtle balancing act," admitted Sue Fisher, policy director for WDCS North America.

What has seemed to have had an impact on the annual kill, however, is increasing awareness of the toxicity of pilot whale meat and its potentially devastating effects on the health of the Faroese. It's been known for some time that whale and dolphin meat can contain harmful levels of mercury and other organo-chlorides, such as cadmium. The most telling research has even been conducted by Faroese scientists themselves.

Toxic Meat

In December of 2008, Dr. Pal Wiehe, chief physician in the Department of Occupational Medicine, Public Health in the Faroe Islands recommended, despite harsh criticism from his countrymen, that residents discontinue consumption of pilot whale meat altogether. Pregnant women and children had long been warned of the potential risks, but not everyone was heeding the advice or even fully aware.

But Wiehe's advice was based on a long-term study of the health effects observed directly in Faroese children and teenagers who consumed pilot whale meat. The pediatric studies started in 1986 with newborns, then followed up with the subjects at seven, 14, and finally last year when the subjects were 23 years old. A doctor specializing in occupational medicine and neurology, two psychologists and a pediatrician specializing in neuropediatrics all contributed their expertise.

The study revealed significant levels of organo-chlorides such as PCBs and DDT and other pollutants among the subjects, resulting in a wide range of health effects including attention-deficit problems, memory retention disorders, immune system effects and other neurological symptoms that remained permanent. The cardiovascular system was also affected, with heart rate variations caused by high levels of methyl mercury (MeHg).

"We don't consider pilot whale meat proper human food," Dr. Wiehe, who himself participated in the drives in his youth and consumed the meat throughout his childhood and adolescence, told The Japan Times in an article published late last month. "Health issues are more important than tradition."

Leading American neurologist Dr. David Permutter, a recipient of the Linus Pauling Functional Medicine Award for his research into brain disease, seconded the notion.

"This practice of serving dolphin meat is tantamount to poisoning people," he told The Japan Times. "They may as well serve them arsenic; it would be no less harmful."

And yet, a representative from the office of Laurie Fulton, US Ambassador to Denmark, Greenland, and the Faeroe Islands, at NAMMCO, who declined to give her name or go on record, said she was unaware of the negative health effects of eating the pilot whale meat and said she'd be surprised since the Faroese are health conscious people.

The fear is, of course, that word of Dr. Wiehe's study is just not making to the Faroese people.

"What mother would feed her child whale meat if she knew it was killing her?" asked McCormick.

Progress Is Slow

According to Birgith Sloth of the Society for the Conservation of Marine Mammals in Denmark, the dolphin drive photos that are being circulated in the email and on Facebook are actually from the end of 1970s and early 1980s. She says increasing awareness of Dr. Wiehe's advice has indeed resulted in a significant drop in the numbers of pilot whales caught per year from 2,000 to just a few hundred a year. From August 2007 to January 2009, no whales were taken at all. In 2009, however, three drives took place, with a total kill of 300 pilot whales.

"It is 300 too much, but the islands are moving in the right direction," writes Sloth in an email. "It will take a while as there has to be a shift in mindset of everyone there, and that takes sometimes a generation."

Sloth warns that pressuring the Faroese with photos from decades ago is not the way to go.

"Putting a lot of pressure on the islands using totally outdated information can have the opposite effect," said Sloth. "There are strong, politically-rooted people there who feel that no one from outside should decide what they do."

Still, there are those who would rather not see any dolphins killed.

"My job and my goal is to avoid cetaceans being killed for unnecessary human use," said Fisher. "[The Faroese hunt] may be sustainable, but it’s not humane. We’re keeping it constantly under review."

Others take a more pragmatic approach, saying we should care about dolphins and whales, "not only because they are charismatic and because they are so much like us as mammals that they really pull at our heartstrings," said McCormack. "But because, from an ecosystem standpoint, they are a keystone species. As top predators, they are bellwethers of the state of ocean health."

What You Can Do

Clearly, signing a petition and circulating disturbing photos of the slaughter is as ineffective as inaction. A more effective approach is to help empower those who dedicate their lives to protecting the species.

"If every one of those people who signs that meaningless petition gave $5, that would be a million dollars at least," says McCormick. "I believe in contributing financially. I give and I give until it hurts, because I know [NGOs] are putting their passion into action. No one gets into this for the money. We feel compelled to do it for our values."

McCormick suggests donors divvy up their donations to these four organizations: Greenpeace, for their ability to attract public attention to issues; the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW,) for their international presence and savvy leaders; the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, since they are directly involved in the issue; and of course her organization, the American Cetacean Society, for its ability to really target and lobby stakeholders. She also suggests getting on the phone and calling Laurie Fulton, the US Ambassador to Denmark, and telling her directly that you don't support the Faroe Island dolphin drive and you want it stopped. Her number is (+45) 33 41 71 00.

Also, inspired in part by this article, McCormick is mobilizing students at campuses across the country to work with The Cove's Ric O'Barry on further raising awareness of the negative health effects of the pilot whale meat and ending the Faroe Island dolphin drive once and for all.