The UK fishing industry will receive over 2,000 tonnes of fishing opportunities in Faroese waters, following annual negotiations with the Faroe Islands for 2025 despite the islands’ controversial practice of slaughtering hundreds of dolphins each year.

The re-negotiation of the annual agreement has elicited a strong response from environmental groups who say the trade deal with the Faroe Islands “puts blood-stained fish” on supermarket shelves, and therefore into the hands of the unwitting British shopper.

The agreement with the Island this year has secured UK fishermen some 880 tonnes of cod and haddock, 575 tonnes of saithe, as well as redfish, blue ling and ling, flatfish, and other species from the Faroese waters. Based on historical prices, those are valued at £5 million to the UK.

The agreement also reconfirms the UK and Faroese commitments to scientific cooperation and to establish a new joint Compliance Forum, which will allow the parties to share good practice on monitoring, control, and surveillance. 

But despite this, conservation and environmental campaigners suggest that British shoppers remain unaware that such a trade deal will ‘essentially be funding brutal dolphin massacres’ while putting the ‘blood-stained fish on British supermarket shelves.’ 

The partnership has therefore been condemned by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK, a marine conservation charity committed to protecting ocean wildlife through direct action campaigns, including its work to oppose dolphin hunts in the Faroe Islands.

These campaigners suggest that due to ‘vague food labelling’ that often fails to identify the true origin of products, most British consumers are unaware of when they are purchasing Faroese seafood. Meanwhile, the same Faroese fishing boats that catch cod and haddock for UK markets are legally required to report the sightings of dolphin pods and partake in their hunts.

Such hunts are bloody affairs, in which the dolphins are driven to shore where they are killed with knives and lances.

Commenting on renewed agreement, Rob Read, chief operation officer at the Paul Watson Foundation UK, said: “The UK Government rewarding Faroese fishing boats that are complicit with the mass slaughter of dolphins in the Faroe Islands goes against the UK’s policies on the protection of marine mammals. We should be halting rather than increasing trade.”

The deal follows the conclusion of negotiations with the EU, Norway, and other coastal States at the end of 2024 bringing the total fishing opportunities secured for the UK fleet in 2025 to 750,000 – worth up to £960 million based on historic landing prices.

Fisheries Minister, Daniel Zeichner, said: “I am pleased the UK has reached an agreement with the Faroe Islands that will allow UK fishing vessels to take advantage of valuable fishing opportunities in 2025. 

“This government will always stand up for the British fishing industry, supporting our coastal communities through a sustainable and economically successful fishing sector.”

A press statement from the UK government on the deal said it highlights ‘both parties’ continued commitment to manage fisheries sustainably and support the long-term viability of stocks’. 

The position of those at the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK, however, is simply that “economic partnerships should demand an end to these [dolphin] hunts, not reward the ongoing slaughter of innocent mammals.”

“No country in the 21st century should be propping up such horrific animal cruelty,” said Read. “We must champion our values at home and abroad and stop buying vast sums of Faroese fish for as long as this barbaric practice continues.”

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