Men gather on the shore to kill the beached whales. Most of the school of whales will usually strand far enough up on shore that it is unnecessary to secure them. However, those remaining in the shallows must be secured and hauled closer. Traditionally, this is done by driving a steel hook, or gaff, with a rope attached to it into the back of the whale. A new blunt hook inserted into an airsac in the whale’s blowhole has been developed in recent years and is now widely used in practice. The traditional pointed hook is, however, still an important piece of equipment for securing and hauling whales after they have been killed.
Whales are killed using a sharp knife to cut down to sever the spinal cord, which also severs the major blood supply to the brain, ensuring both the loss of consciousness and death within seconds.
Killing methods in the pilot whale hunt have for several years been the subject of an on-going veterinary monitoring programme, which examines times-to-death of individual animals in the hunt and the efficiency of the organisation of the drive and the equipment used. The Faroes have provided information on the results of this monitoring programme to a number of international technical workshops on humane killing methods for whales and other wildlife. The Faroes partcipate avtively inthe work of the NAMMCO Committee on Hunting Methods (see also under International Cooperation and Whaling and Animal Welfare)
