Dolphin drive hunting
It has been practiced since about the time of the first Norse settlements on these North Atlantic islands, and thus can be considered aboriginal whaling.
[2] It is closely regulated by the Faroese authorities,[3] with around 800 long-finned pilot whales[4] and some Atlantic white-sided dolphins slaughtered annually;[5] mainly during the summer.
[8][9][10] In November 2008, Høgni Debes Joensen, chief medical officer of the Faroe Islands and Pál Weihe, scientist, have recommended in a letter to the Faroese government that pilot whales should no longer be considered fit for human consumption because of the high level of mercury, PCB and DDT derivatives.
On 1 July 2011 the Faroese Food and Veterinary Authority announced their recommendation regarding the safety of eating meat and blubber from the pilot whale, which was not as strict as the one of the chief medical officers.
As a NATO ally with an air base in Iceland, the US Navy deployed Patrol Squadrons VP-18 and VP-7 to achieve this task.
[15] In the late 1970s, after the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the ban on hunting killer whales in Washington in 1976 as discussed later in this article, the hunting of killer whales in Iceland resumed, this time aiming to capture live animals for the entertainment industry.
The Taiji dolphin drive hunt captures small cetaceans for their meat and for sale to dolphinariums.
Taiji is the only town in Japan where drive hunting still takes place on a large scale.
An article by National Geographic refers to The Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums' decision to no longer support the Taiji hunt.
[20][21][22] Dolphin are hunted in Malaita, in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, mainly for their meat and teeth, and also sometimes for live capture for dolphinariums.
[26][needs update] In ancient Hawaii, fishermen occasionally hunted dolphins for their meat by driving them onto the beach and killing them.
In their ancient legal system, dolphin meat was considered to be kapu (forbidden) for women together with several other kinds of food.
These hunts were led by aquarium owner and entrepreneur Edward "Ted" Griffin and his partner Don Goldsberry.
