Passengers on a luxury cruise ship were forced to watch dozens of whales die after a hunt took place off the side of the boat.
The sea surrounding the Ambassador Cruise Line vehicle off the coast of the Faroe Islands turned bright red as the blood of 78 pilot whales filled the water on July 9.
The cruise provider has since taken to Twitter to issue an apology to its customers and slammed the hunt, calling it an "outdated practice".
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"We strongly object to this outdated practice, and have been working with our partner, ORCA, a charity dedicated to studying and protecting whales, dolphins and purposes in UK and European waters, to encourage change since 2021," the liner wrote.
"We fully appreciate that witnessing this local event would have been distressing for the majority of guests on board.
"Accordingly, we would like to sincerely apologise to them for any undue upset."
Ambassador's chief executive Christian Verhounig added the company was committed to protecting marine life and said the organisation aims to "educate our guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat".
The hunt is known as grindadráp or "grind" and translates to "whale slaughter," according to Newsweek.
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The practice is common throughout the year and sees locals herd whale pods to certain locations with shallow water where hunters can kill them more easily using knives or hooks.
In one hunt alone a whopping 1423 dolphins were killed, with a 2021 review of the tradition prompting the Faroese government to limit the number of that specific breed that can be killed to 500.
However, the number of marine animals that can be killed in one go was left uncapped.
Marine conservation activists at Blue Planet Society have been tracking the total killings and say this latest hunt has brought this year's total number of victims to 650.
They have since called on the EU and UK governments to "take a stand against this unacceptable torture."
Meanwhile the Faroe Islands government said the practice "is deemed sustainable," adding that hunters are required to carry a licence and can only hunt in certain areas.
"Whaling in the Faroe Islands has been regulated for centuries," the government's website read.
"The law explicitly states that the hunt is to be conducted in such a way as to cause as little suffering to the whales as possible," it continued, adding the hunt is not commercial.
Resources from the whales caught and killed are is distributed for free to the local community
Whale blubber is sold "occasionally" from supermarkets on the dockside.
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