Originally published at: Cruise line apologies after dozens of whales slaughtered in front of passengers | Boing Boing
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“Hunting and killing methods have been improved to ensure as little harm to the whales as possible.”
Glad to hear it, Faroe islands.
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Heart-rending, disgusting, appalling, and thoroughly fucking
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Yeah the smallest amount of harm you can do when you’re killing something is 100%.
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I guess there’s no fixed period of time when these whale hunts occur, they could happen at any time during certain spring/summer months, but the cruise ship absolutely should have (and probably had) known this was a possibility. The hand-wringing on the part of the cruise ship seems a little insincere as a result. I would think if they were serious about not subjecting the passengers to this, that simply not visiting the ports there while this was even a possibility would be the way to go.
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Next, it will be the passengers.
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17 posts were split to a new topic: On the Colonialist Implications of “Save the Whales”
There’s going to be hell to pay when the Orcas hear about this.
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… “millennium” 
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Wait, uh, crise line apologizes for being a cruise line?
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Only if they weren’t included in the hunt:
Killer whales of Eden, New South Wales - Wikipedia.
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I was planning a trip to the Faroe Islands recently and had just been researching flights a few days ago. This news absolutely squashes any chance of a trip. As much as I would love to visit the islands my conscience would be too bothered to support their economy.
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Unfun fact: one of the two species pictured on this beach in the Faroes has very large brains with the most neurons ever recorded of any species (and the other is human)
*Comparative neuroanatomy hasn’t been done for most cetaceans and 2 ton mammals generally have larger brains than human-sized ones, but of species where neuron counts for whole brains has been published, the long-finned pilot whales killed here had the most
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This is one of those rare cases where the cruise line operator can say “what the fuck” to the locals and not the other way around.
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Just Nope.
Passengers should get their fares refunded in full.
Whether or not this is done “sustainably” or “we’ve always done this” -the cruise line doesn’t need to go there anymore.
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This is the beach by my grandpa’s house. I was there last summer.
If you’re not a fan of whale meat, don’t look into what they do to puffins.
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I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I do understand the sentiment. I’ve questioned my own consumption of red meat for ethical reasons, and I suspect that future generations will look back at our treatment of animals the way we look at slavery and honor killings.
I would put whales in the same category as pigs and octopi. They’re intelligent enough that we should probably start having some serious conversations about the ethics of consuming them. At the same time, food is food, and I think this is a problem to be considered after we’ve eradicated hunger.
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Why after? Why can’t we work on multiple issues simultaneously? And what’s the connection to hunger? Whale slaugher isn’t about feeding people.
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… I was starving to death in a refugee camp, suffering from from an advanced critical case of malnutrition, until the UNHCR showed up with those pallets of sweet sweet whale meat 
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