Sea turns blood red as entire village including young children round up and slaughter 180 whales in preparation for the harsh winter months on the remote Faroe Islands

These images show dozens of villagers on a remote Atlantic island hunting down and slaughtering a pod of whales, colouring the water red with blood.

The practice, known as whale driving, saw children as young as five take part in the hunt of some 180 whales in the village of Sandavágur on Vágar island last month.

Every summer, hundreds of pilot and beaked whales are killed across the Faroe Islands, a Danish archipelago located hundreds of miles off the Scottish coast between Norway and Iceland.

Hunting season: Dozens of villagers on Vágar, Faroe Islands, gather to help out in the hunting and butchering of a pod of some 180 whales

Learning early: Both adults and children take part in the slaughtering of the whale pod in village of Sandavágur on Vágar

Butchers: The carcass of a whale is dragged through the water before it is cut up on land by the locals

Whale driving on the Faroe Islands date back to the late 16th century and involve residents herding pods of whales into shallow waters.

They are then killed using a ‘spinal lance’ that is inserted through the animal’s neck to break its spinal cord.

While locals have been carrying out the annual hunts ahead of the sparse winter months for centuries, with the meat served salted or cut into steaks and the blubber sliced up and eaten raw, the practice often come off as shocking and gruesome to outsiders.

Cambridge University student Alastair Ward, 22, was visiting the archipelago last month to celebrate his graduation when he and a friend stumbled across the whale hunt.