Fourteen activists from the radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd have been arrested in Denmark's Faroe Islands while trying to halt a traditional dolphin hunt, their organisation said Sunday. The activists were detained Saturday on the island of Sandoy while attempting to save a pod of 33 pilot whales — members of the dolphin family — which were being driven toward shore to be slaughtered, Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, said. Large numbers of pilot whales are slaughtered each year on the Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark. Sea Shepherd, which has waged a sometimes violent campaign against whalers and in defence of ocean wildlife, has denounced the hunt as brutal and archaic, and this year brought celebrities to the North Atlantic islands to cast a spotlight on the practice.
