Outcry as 1,400 dolphins killed in Faroe Islands hunt
The government of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous Danish territory, is facing an outcry over the culling of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in a day, in what was said to be the single biggest hunt in the northern archipelago.
“There is no doubt that the Faroese whale hunts are a dramatic sight to people unfamiliar to the hunts and slaughter of mammals,” a government spokesman told AFP.
“The hunts are, nevertheless, well organised and fully regulated,” he said.
Traditionally, the North Atlantic islands – which have a population of around 50,000 people – hunt pilot whales and not dolphins, the spokesman said.
“There are usually a few of them in the ‘grind’, but we normally don’t kill such a large number,” said a local television journalist, Hallur av Rana.
The “grindadrap” is a practice whereby the hunters first surround the whales with a wide semi-circle of fishing boats and then drive them into a bay to be beached and slaughtered.
Saudi Arabia camel carvings dated to prehistoric era
A series of camel sculptures carved into rock faces in Saudi Arabia are likely to be the oldest large-scale animal reliefs in the world, a study says.
When the carvings were first discovered in 2018, researchers estimated they were created about 2,000 years ago, the BBC reported.
This was based on their similarity to reliefs at Jordan’s famous ancient city of Petra.
But a fresh study puts the camels at between 7,000-8,000 old.
Precisely ageing rock sculptures is a challenge for researchers. Unlike cave paintings, say, there is often no organic matter to sample. Rock art of this size is also rare in the region.
Their age makes them even older than such ancient landmarks as Stonehenge (5,000 years old) or the Pyramids at Giza (4,500 years old). They even predate the domestication of camels, a catalyst for economic development in the region.
TikTok rolls out support to combat suicide searches
The BBC reports that TikTok has announced a set of features to help users struggling with mental health issues and thoughts of suicide.
The features include guides on wellbeing and support for people who are struggling with eating disorders.
There is also a search intervention feature that directs users to support resources if they look up terms such as “suicide”.
The move comes as rival platform Instagram comes under fresh scrutiny over its impact on users’ wellbeing.
In the announcement TikTok said: “We care deeply about our community, and we always look for new ways in which we can nurture their well-being.
“That’s why we’re taking additional steps to make it easier for people to find resources when they need them on TikTok.”