Faroe Islands

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Gems, Highlights & Attractions

A few weeks ago the Pilot Whales came to Torshavn. I took my guidebook and read the part about the Grindadráp or whale-killing again. I must say I am very pleased about the description and am very glad that you at Lonely Planet have not chosen the "Disney-ficated" version of this part of Faroese culture.

As I jumped in the bloody water to help pull these two ton creatures up on the beach to be killed I could see doctors and nurses watching from the roof of the Hospital overlooking the bay, workers from the shipyard who had left work, school children with their teachers who had left the classrooms and old people from the nursing home nearby who had come to the beach to watch this spectacle.

The ironic part of all this is the high level of mercury in the whales that is now threatening to kill not the whales but the people here...
Jakob Busch Jürgensen, Denmark (Sep 02)

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