3.4.4. Whaling

Whale meat has most likely been consumed in the Faroes since the time of settlement, and community organized hunting of pilot whales has continued on the Faroes till this day. The fact that whale drives and distribution of whale catch is mentioned in the Sheep Letter indicates that the practice of pilot whale hunting or *grindadráp* goes back to at least the 14th century. Historical documentation and statistics of *grindadráp* catches go back to 1584, making it one of the best documented hunting practices in the world. The whale species hunted by the Faroese is the long-finned pilot whale (*Globicephala melas*). When a pod is spotted close enough to the coast, the whales are driven ashore and killed on the beaches. Pilot whales are not considered a threatened species by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), but because of environmental and animal rights concerns, the practice of *grindadráp* has been highly controversial since the mid-1980s. In spite of this, the Faroese have so far continued the food provisioning practice of *grindadráp*. The size and distribution of a whale catch is measured in the traditional unit of *skinn*, and during the past two decades, the yearly average size of the whale catch has been approximately 4900 *skinn*. Using the *skinn* value of 38 kg for meat and 34 kg for blubber proposed by Bloch and Zahariassen [80], this can be calculated into an average annual contribution of 186 tons of whale meat and 167 tons of blubber.
