The ‘grind’, as the hunts are commonly called, can happen at any time at any one of the 26 designated killing bays around the islands, with the majority of the hunts statistically occurring between July and September and an average of 1156 pilot whales and dolphins killed each and every year over the past 40-year period. The grindadráp has no season, no quota and no restrictions on killing pregnant females or juveniles. Entire families are killed in the name of tradition...a tradition that has no place in a country where today the standard of living equals its Scandinavian neighbors, and even the Faroese doctors say the meat is too toxic for regular human consumption. 

Thanks to Sea Shepherd's careful documentation of the slaughters, the Grind is often in the headlines. Yet misinformation still abounds about these drive hunts, so we wanted to share a few facts to help audiences differentiate truth from fiction.

Read to learn about the top ten myths, including: 'Whale meat is an essential source of food in the Faroe Islands'; 'The hunt only involves wild animals who have lived long and free lives', 'The Grind is the same as a slaughterhouse', and 'The Grind is sustainable.'