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by Pete Bethune

from Pete Bethune in the Faroe Islands

“So will you be hunting whales this summer”, I say to Thor, a local Faroese whaler who has finally agreed to speak with me.

Thor looks down at his cappuccino while he ponders this. He takes a spoon, scoops some white fluff from the surface, and puts it in his mouth.

“Well”, he says finally, “we do not hunt whales. They come to us and we simply take them. It is better to call it a harvest I think.”

“Why do you wish to stop whaling”, Pai (Chief Medical Officer for the Faroe Islands) says to me. He looks down at me like a school teacher at a naughty student. He’s the leading researcher of toxicity in whales, and has been a major influence in reducing whale consumption in the Faroe Islands.

I shift uneasily in my seat. “Well”, I reply slowly, “to many people outside the Faroes, what happens here with slaughtering of whales is appalling. And if it continues, this country will pay a heavy price.”