The Islands and The Whales

#IslandsandWhalesPBS
PBS Premiere: Oct. 9, 2017Check the broadcast schedule »

Filmmaker Statement

I first met Faroese sailors during the making of my previous documentary while stormbound on a boat in gales northwest of Scotland. They told me about their way of hunting and said they believed it was ending. But the further I explored the story the more complicated it became, and it also revealed itself as being about far more than just local whaling.

The whales were not believed to be endangered, and the hunt was deemed sustainable. Indeed, the whales were not hunted for commercial greed, but for food that was distributed communally for free. However, a local doctor, now a professor and internationally respected toxicologist, discovered that the local whale meat is toxic, as it is polluted with mercury from faraway industrialized nations. Coal burning power stations and gold mining account for most of the mercury, and it isn't just whales that are affected--many species of fish, including tuna, swordfish and halibut, have been shown to have very high levels. There was an important message that these islands and the whales had for us all. 

As a result of finding out about this contamination, the majority of Faroese have now drastically reduced their consumption of whale meat. Hunting should decrease in proportion to that reduction in consumption, but that's hard to assess. And while the islanders are slowly coming to terms with pollution, the rest of the world is suffering from inertia in tackling climate change and the sources of this problem; we are the bad guys. The plastic in birds, the mercury in whales and the collapse of native species are real. These things are undeniable, and they came from us. This was all very disturbing to discover, especially in what should be a pristine corner of the world.

Making this film wasn't without its difficulties. We spent a total of 53 weeks filming over a four-year period. Twice we waited more than three months for the whales to appear. Cameras were filled with sea spray, and at one point I was getting electric shocks in my eye from a viewfinder. One particularly challenging event we filmed was the gannet hunt on the western island of Mykines. Our sound recordist and I were lowered down 300-foot sea cliffs in the dead of night, with ropes around our waists, the first outsiders to join the Faroese on the hunt. We spent eight hours on a four-foot ledge largely covered by birds and nests. To add to the challenge, the camera screen broke, so I had to judge focus by distance! It was one of the happiest moments of the filming process when we all made it back to the top of the cliff.

I wanted to make a film from which all sides of the debate could learn something. The warning these whales and the islanders give should unite us. Seeing plastic in birds and whales, and then going home to witness the use of disposable plastics in restaurants and coal burning power stations is grim. It's also unnecessary. The world's population has increased over the lifetime of our older subject from approximately 2 billion to 7 billion, putting an obvious strain on the environment. Much like the Faroese, we all need to accept the reality of our impact on the natural world and change our ways. As our puffin-stuffing, nature-loving subject Jens-Kjeld says, we usually act when it's too late; best we heed his warning. 

Mike Day, Director