The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society:

Fingers rapped by Advertising Standards Authority

Together with the Environmental Investigation Agency and the RSPCA, the WDCS comprises the Pilot Whale Campaign, an organisation, now laid dormant, whose object was to stop the Faroese pilot whale hunt through the use of external pressure. The campaign has attempted to make it look as though the Faroese people are living under conditions comparable to those in Russia under Stalin, that there is strong opposition to the hunt, and that those opposed to it dare not appear in public for fear of reprisals. We “found a wall of silence broken only by courageous Faroese informants who are too frightened to speak out openly. These locals are unable to network with others who oppose the hunt because all opposition is insidiously suppressed”, EIA Director, Jennifer Lonsdale and Pilot Whale Campaigner, Gillian Stacey, are reported as saying in the EIA Newsletter, after visiting the Faroes in November 1994.

According to the newsletter, one of the informants “described horrendous wastage at the last big whale kill”. Similar claims are also put forward in the film “Animal Detectives” by an informant who, according to the narrator, is “totally disguised by using an actor” for fear of her safety. And also for safety’s sake, we are only shown the actor’s back. The film, which was made by the EIA, was shown on British television in May, 1995. In the light of these rigid safety precautions, we can only react with amazement when the informant reveals his source: “It was on the radio news how much meat was wasted”.

The WDCS advertisement that was posted in the national press, was reviewed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the light of a complaint lodged by the Faroese Pilot Whaler’s Association. According to the ASA adjudication, the WDCS said that the claim that the Faroese Government suppressed the views of its own people was taken from a report written by one of their former campaign workers.