Fishing Persuasive Essay

There is not much farming in the Faroe Islands, an isle in the North Atlantic, about halfway from Norway, Iceland, and Scotland. Aside from the sheep roam the islands and a few native vegetables, the Faroese have always had to rely on the ocean as a source of their food. In particular, the Pilot Whale, which they kill in a hunt known as the grindadráp, or grind. The word “grind” which rhymes with the word wind, is actually Faroese for Pilot Whale, and may refer to the activity of whale slaughter, whale meat, or the animals themselves. On the islands, hunting whales for food is a tradition as old as the isle itself. But in recent years, animal’s rights activists have taken offense to this tradition, despite the islander’s claims that it is sustainable and done in a humane way.
Sea Shepard, a marine conservation society founded in 1977 by Paul
They harvest about 800 whales a year, although that number can vary. A survey conducted in 2007 found that The Pilot Whale population was around 128,000. Allowing the Faroese to argue that a harvest of less than 1 percent is sustainable. Therefore, the question is: What exactly is sustainability? Sustainability is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. In class we touched upon the writings of Wendell Berry. In his article “The Pleasures of Eating” he argues that people take for granted their meals and have no idea the process farmers go through to make our lives easier. Yet, is that not what the people of these islands are doing? They are hunting their own food, doing it as a community, and dividing the shares equally. In a world that is so full of convenience and ease, it is refreshing to see people who take pleasure in the making of their food. If anything the high levels of mercury and other industrial pollutants in the water are a bigger threat to the Pilot Whale