Medical experts in the Faroe Islands have said that pilot whales are now so contaminated with toxic pollutants that they should not be eaten at all.
The Faroe Islands, situated midway between Scotland and Iceland, is where whale hunts known as the ‘grind’ take place each year with entire pods of whales driven ashore and hacked to death in a bloody and cruel spectacle. The islanders kill hundreds of pilot whales each year, as well as dolphins and beaked whales.
Faroese medical officers have announced what anti-whaling campaigners have been saying for a long time – that pilot whale meat and blubber is so contaminated by mercury, PCBs and DDT pesticide pollutants that it is unsafe for human consumption.
“We have been arguing for many years that whale and dolphin meat is no longer safe for human consumption’ said Campaign Whale Director Andy Ottaway “In that time the Faroese alone have continued to slaughter whales in huge numbers in the most brutal and callous way imaginable. We hope this is the beginning of the end for this cruel hunt, but our pollution may yet drive these poor whales to extinction”.
Research on the impact of pollutants such as mercury on the Faroese themselves has revealed damage to foetal neural development, high blood pressure, and impaired immunity in children, as well as increased rates of Parkinson’s disease, circulatory problems and possibly infertility in adults.
“Around the world, particularly in Japan, hundreds of thousands of smaller whales, dolphins and porpoises are cruelly slaughtered for their meat. The tragic irony is that these animals are being slowly poisoned to death as are the people eating them,” said Andy Ottaway of Campaign Whale”, We have to stop killing these wonderful animals and stop polluting our planet. What this demonstrates is that what we do to our world and fellow creatures in it, so we ultimately are doing to ourselves.”
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