Bloody sea horror after dolphins are drilled to fit tags

SICKENED British volunteers condemned the GPS tagging of dolphins with power drills in the Faroe Islands after it turned into a bloodbath.

-  Steph Spyro

A pod of around 15 Atlantic white-sided dolphins were circled by speed boats - their crews banging on the sides of the vessels and driven towards a bay then on to rocks.

There, researchers held them down and drilled into the base of two dolphins' dorsal fins, sending blood gushing into the waters.

One helpless animal had a probe shoved down its throat likely to be to insert a "pill" temperature gauge.

Marine conservationist Alison Pake, who is in her 50s and from Sunderland, witnessed the operation in the village of Norðragøta on the archipelago 200 miles north of Scotland.

She said: "This is barbaric. To see what they've done with the drill. Why is it needed? The pill went straight down the throat but they ram it down.