Saving Grace, featuring Robert Plant and Suzi Dian, cancels Faroe Islands festival set due to country's whaling operation

Disclaimer: I'm half Faroese so I may be biased on this one.

I found it refreshing that the article didn't rush to condemn the practice, as some other articles I saw online did. Grindadráp is easy to turn people against, with the striking appearance of the bloody water, most people's total obliviousness to (or wilful ignorance of) the realities of meat production, and the fact that people categorise whales as "intelligent" instead of "food".

There have been studies done that demonstrate that last part. Here's an abstract of one:

Many people like eating meat, but most are reluctant to harm things that have minds. The current three studies show that this dissonance motivates people to deny minds to animals. Study 1 demonstrates that animals considered appropriate for human consumption are ascribed diminished mental capacities. Study 2 shows that meat eaters are motivated to deny minds to food animals when they are reminded of the link between meat and animal suffering. Finally, Study 3 provides direct support for our dissonance hypothesis, showing that expectations regarding the immediate consumption of meat increase mind denial. Moreover, this mind denial in turn reduces negative affect associated with dissonance. The findings highlight the role of dissonance reduction in facilitating the practice of meat eating and protecting cultural commitments.

People also bring up sustainability, but the magnitude of the killing is quite small in comparison to the population size, and as is pointed out in the article:

According to IUCN Red List, Grindadráp is a sustainable practice as the long-finned pilot whale is not an endangered species.

Another point which is often ignored is that this is not a commercial operation, people from the communities involved have the meat divided evenly amongst themselves, and is preserved to be eaten over the following months, maybe more.

I'd write more but it's late, so in case someone wants to read more I'll leave what appears to be a well researched post that I just came across while looking for some more concrete information. I think I've read it before, and it covers the practice pretty well as well as the problem with boycotts like the above.