Land animals. All mammals have been introduced by man. Apart from domestic animals there are hares, brown rats, and mice. The hare was introduced in 1855 for the purpose of game hunting. There are no amphibians or reptiles.

Bird life. There are 49 species of birds which breed regularly, 27 birds which breed irregularly, and about 200 species of visitors. There is a high proportion of non-migratory birds. Many species have developed special Faroese races: eider, starling, wren, guillemot, and black guillemot.

Sea birds. The number of sea birds on the Faroe Islands is higher than in any other part of the Atlantic. This is because of the large amount of animal plankton.

Far the most numerous are the puffins. The breeding colonies of the puffins are found on grassy slopes on the upper parts of the sea cliffs, where they dig their holes. They also live in the screes under the bird cliffs.

The guillemot is another characteristic sea bird. Its food is small herrings and other small fishes. The guillemot has decreased seriously and has been together with the razorbill, protected by law for the last 7 years. The number of razorbills is much smaller. They live among the guillemots and like the guillemots lay one egg. The razorbills live on sandeel like the puffins. The black guillemots live differently from the three species of birds mentioned. They stay close to the coast where they dive for small fish, bivalves, and crayfish. They are non-migratory birds, live scattered along the coasts and breed in the scree below the cliffs.

The fulmar is one of the most common sea birds. It breeds on the bird cliffs and also on inland mountains. The fulmar came to the Faroe Islands from the north in the latter part of the 19. century and has increased enormously.

The gannet breeds only on the shelves on Mykines and Mykineshólmur. It can be seen all the year round but normally it moves southwards in the autumn. At the end of January it returns. The gannet feeds on rather big fish, for instance coalfish which it catches by diving vertically from great heights.

The cormorant is common. It breeds in the scree in small colonies and feeds on fish and crayfish.

There are 6 species of seagulls. The smallest of them is the kittiwake, which breeds on the bird cliffs, often together with the guillemot but more usually further down. There are about 200 pairs of the great skua.
The eider nests on skerries in colonies but often also solitary inland. It is a non-migratory bird which feeds on shells and snails along the coasts.

Land birds. Compared with the bird life in the sea and along the coasts, the inland bird life is poor. In the heather and grass moors we can often see golden plover, oystercatcher, and the whimbrel.

Common snipe live on more moist ground. The rock pipit is common in the heather and pasture landscape. In the grassland the starling and rock dove are seen, the dove more rarely, however. The starling breeds in stone fences or house walls. The rock dove gets its food in the vegetation but breeds in coastal cliffs. Both birds are mostly non-migratory.

The wren is found in the scree below the bird cliffs, in ravines, in fences, and beside houses. The wheatear is extremely common. More randomly distributed birds are the raven and the crow which are both non-migratory. There is only one species of birds of prey, namely the merlin. In the years before the Second World War the sparrow came to the islands and has had some increase.

The freshwater fauna. Only the fish are dealt with, some of them are popular angling fish. There are 5 species of fish in the Faroese lakes and rivers. The European eel is common. We find also salmon, sea trout, river trout, and char. Stickleback lives in brackish water as well as in streams and lakes.

The marine fauna. The beach. There is a rich animal life in the littoral zone because of the vigorus algae vegetation. Common limpet and the common periwinkle as well as the thick-walled common dog whelk are found. Furthermore, edible mussel and barnacles live at sea level.

In the seaweed belt there is plenty of fry of cod, coalfish, plaice, and the dab, apart from small sea scorpions, sticklebacks, and butterfish. The shore crab is very common, as are gammarus and sea slaters. Further out in the littoral zone we also find sea urchins, common starfish, and sea anemones. These are also found at greater depths.

Bottom fauna. In fjords and sounds where there is a soft bottom many species of bivalves are found, for instance scallops, razor shells, cockles, whelks, and pelican's-foot. Norway lobster lives on soft bottom and is of some economic importance. Also many bristle worms live in the Faroese waters. On deeper bottom the leather coral, dead man's finger is found together with many bivalves, chiton, brittle stars, horse mussels, edible crabs, hermit crabs, and barnacles. Other bivalves, brittle stars, and sea urchins live at still greater depths, 110-300 m.

Pelagic fauna. Only one species of seal breeds at the Faroese coast, the grey seal. It breeds in deep caves in the sea cliffs.

Fish. The fish fauna of the seas around the Faroes bears the stamp of both boreal and arctic conditions. Cod is not as dominant as in more northern waters, however, the species mix is not as diverse as in the North Sea.
High arctic species occur in the cold waters north of the Faroe Islands and species from warmer waters are not uncommon guests from the south.

The waters around the Faroes are well investigated and for the important commercial species annual assessments are available based on the work of Faroese scientists and filtered and finally presented through the advisory bodies of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

These assessments show that there are three main groundfish species, saithe (stock sizes around 150,000-200,000 tonnes), cod (stock sizes around 100,000-150,000 tonnes) and haddock (80,000-90,000 tonnes). This is reflected in the catch figures. For the period 1974 to 1984 the average catch of saithe was 36,000, cod 33,000 and haddock 17,000.

These three species in the Faroe area are separate stocks, independent of stocks in other economic zones and fully contained within the Faroese fisheries zone. They are mainly found in moderate water depths on the Faroe Plateau and Faroe Bank.

There are large stocks of sandeel and Norway pout. Only the Norway pout is exploited to a moderate degree. Atlantic halibut and lemon sole are abundant and these species have important spawning grounds in the Faroe area. Shellfish is not abundant. Small stocks of Norway lobster and queen scallop support minor fisheries. Beyond the shelf edge on and above the continental slope important fisheries for tusk, ling, blue ling and redfish take place. Redfish and blue ling in the Faroe area are parts of larger stock complexes outside the Faroese fisheries zone. The total catches of these species in recent years has been around 25,000 tonnes. Deeper down on the continental slope there are almost unexploited stocks of black scabbardfish, grenadiers and sharks.

Since the extinction of the Atlanto-Scandian herring in the late 1960s no major pelagic stocks have been present in the Faroe area. However, major components of the large blue whiting stock migrate to and through the Faroe area foraging in the pelagic water masses.

Adolescent fish of these species are common at the bottom of the shelf edge. The migrating mature blue whiting supports major fisheries in some years above 200,000 tonnes. The pelagic water masses over deep water in the Faroe area are an important feeding area for Atlantic salmon, mainly of Norwegian origin. A fishery for salmon, regulated by international convention, takes place in the winter.

Cetaceans. The most important and abundant cetacean species in the Faroe area is the pilot whale (Globicephala melaena), in Faroese language "grind", a medium-sized toothed whale. Pods from an Atlantic population - which according to recent extensive surveys is very large - enter Faroese coastal waters, especially in the months July, August and September. The species is exploited in a traditional hunt for subsistence purposes. Records of numbers caught date back to 1584 and show that the occurrence in Faroese waters undergoes periodic fluctuations. The hunt has been regulated since 1832 by specific "grind" regulations. They have been regularly updated and in recent years changes in the regulations bringing the hunt in line with modern animal welfare standards have been introduced. The numbers taken in 1986-1988, which have been regarded as "good pilot whale years", have been around 1,600 specimens.

A number of other species of small cetaceans and large whales inhabit or migrate through Faroese waters. These include porpoises and bottlenose dolphins and of the larger whales fin whales are not uncommon especially in late summer. North and north east of the Faroes bottlenose whales are regularly spotted and also killer whales are frequently seen. The industrial whale hunt ended in the Faroes in 1957 and at the present time no commercial whale hunt takes place.