The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

Whaling in the Faroe Islands,
1584-1994: An Overview
Dorete Bloch
Introduction
The Faroe Islands are centrally placed in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean at
62N 7W and are separated by some 300-600 km of water from their
neighbours, Shetland, Iceland and Norway. The currents around the
archipelago are anticyclonic with variable fronts between the warm
North Atlantic Current and the cold East-Icelandic Current. This isolated
position in rich up-welling, mixing water masses has produced a human
mode of life that depends on marine resources, and today some 80% of
the national economy is in one way or another dependent on the sea.
Geography and climate result in poor agricultural production and have
further encouraged the development of cheap fishing methods to provide
food. Such traditional catching methods have survived with little change
through centuries. 97
One of these traditions is the whaling which has been conducted since
the Norse settlement more than one thousand years ago. 98 Faroese
whaling in its old traditional form is an opportunistic drive fishery in
which two whale species have been taken exclusively for food, namely
the Long-Finned Pilot Whale (Globicephala melas) and the Northern
Bottlenose Whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus). For each species, the
annual hunting pressure on the populations has been calculated to be on
average 0.1% (range: 0.0-0.6%) and this may have no influence on
population size, estimated at 778,000 (cv=0.285) for pilot whales and
around 40,000 for bottlenose whales. 99
97 J. P. Joensen, 1987.
98 S. Dahl, 1971.
99 D. Bloch, 1994. D. Bloch, G. Desportes, M. Zachariassen & I. Christensen, 1996. D.
Bloch & L. Lastein, 1995. S.T. Buckland, D. Bloch, K.L. Cattanach, T. Gunnlaugsson,
K. Hoydal, S. Lens & J. Sigurjónsson, 1993. NAMMCO, 1993.
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