Whales and dolphins slaughtered on the Danish Faroe Islands

The conservation group Sea Shepherd Global has released photos taken by volunteers of the "grindadrap', a contentious annual whale hunt tradition in the Faroe Islands dating back to the late 16th century.

The volunteers, posing as tourists, said they saw migrating pilot whales and dolphins being herded into shallow waters, getting dragged up the beach with hooks in their blowholes, and slaughtered.

The "barbaric killing" claimed 198 Atlantic white-sided dolphins and 436 pilot whales, the group said, calling for the hunt to stop.

But the Faroe Islands' government defended the tradition, saying that whale meat and the blubber of pilot whales had fed the islanders and that the hunt was sustainable. It also condemned Sea Shepherd for "inciting anger and outrage against the people of the Faroe Islands."