Last week an Italian e-mail reached my mail box with some gruesome photos of pilot whales being slaughtered in a sea of red blood. The e-mail told its recipients to protest against Denmark for “dolphin slaughtering” and after reading more I realized that the e-mail sender must have mistaken the Faroe Islands for Denmark. (The Faroe Islands are largely an autonomous entity and a home-rule law, brought into effect in 1948, gave them a considerable degree of political independence from Denmark.)

I have a large interest in the Faroes as I spent some memorable days there this past May. I understand they value their old traditions, but that does not fully justify this slaughter of pilot whales in modern times. But the Faroese are islanders and I believe their approach to killing and survival are very different from ours – the mainlanders. (I have experienced a bit of island mentality as I had spent some years on Kyushu, the most southern Japanese main island.)

In an interview with a Faroese which I had posted last year, my Faroese friend stated most people work in retail and fish factories, which explains their livelihood comes mostly from fish and sea food.

The slaughtering is cruel, but who are we to impose our culture and ethics on them? Some cultural differences cannot be understood, only accepted. And my acceptance does not mean I condone it – it only means I have to get more understanding of the matter. I personally would not like to watch this like some Faroese women do by looking on from the shore. How awful! But unlike them, I did not grow up believing this slaughtering is a natural thing to do.

Wait! I grew up on a farm in Germany and I recall our pig-slaughtering event every November. The butcher would come to our house and I was a four-year-old girl given permission to chase the soon-to-be slaughtered pig around our mini-courtyard until it dropped from exhaustion. Then the butcher would cut its throat and I would be handed a bucket with a wooden spoon and told to catch the blood while stirring quickly. I was then instructed – after the pig had lost all of its blood – to bring it down to the cellar where this blood would be turned into blood sausage a little while later.

I could not do this anymore, but back then it was a normal thing to do. For the Faroese, this slaughtering is  still a common practice to ensure their traditions and food supply are kept up.

And if you think other cultures should live up to our expectations, then you should also protest against the bull fights in Spain, the cock fights in the United States (among other places) held for gambling, or the slaughter of dogs for food in parts of Asia.

If you want to protest, then direct it at the Faroe Islands and not to Denmark. The Faroese have their own language, their own Faroese money, and their own culture. You may also contact Roy from Framtak if you have any questions about the islands.

While it is true that traditional slaughtering has been practiced for centuries in most countries, some of these old customs might be in opposition to animal rights today.