UK Edition
Faroe Islands appeals to Google with launch of 'Sheep View'
What a week it’s been for the Faroe Islands.
As its annual whaling season got underway at the weekend, the archipelago was hit by a tidal wave of criticism, after photos of the slaughter surfaced online.
The images, which showed the sea turning red as men hacked at stricken whales, prompted environmentalists to renew calls for a ban on the hunts (or “grindadraps”), which are estimated to have claimed the lives of 50 pilot whales so far.
Anthony Kiedis, frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, waded into the furore, lending his name to a petition calling on chain-store giant, Costco, to boycott Faroese salmon until the slaughter stops.
Not a good week then for the tourist board to launch its own campaign, calling on Google to finally put the archipelago on the map.
While many countries around the world have been captured by Google Street View, the Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago within the Kingdom of Denmark, is a notable exception.
But in a bid to address this – and perhaps the bad PR that the whalers are generating – the tourist board has taken matters into its own hands, launching a new campaign called Sheep View 360, which aims to capture the beauty of the archipelago by attaching cameras to its sheep.
The 'lamb cams' take a photograph every minute and relay the footage back to the tourist board, which then uploads it onto Google Street View.
“We hope that, by telling the story of the Faroe Islands through these images and via our site, Sheep View 360, we’ll showcase the stunning landscapes to an international audience thus far denied access to image-based mapping of the islands”, Visit Faroe Islands said in a statement.
“We’re off the usual tourist trail, but have a wide array of ancient traditions”, it added.
However, one of those ancient traditions is whale hunting, which environmentalists claim is barbaric and unnecessary.
“It is inherently cruel for the whales”, said Jennifer Lonsdale, director of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
“There is no guarantee the whales will be killed quickly; some will have to wait in turn for their death and others will be driven onto rocks which will cause scratching”, she added.