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Animal Rights Activists Worldwide Protest Start of Dolphin Hunting Season in Japan

September 11, 2017 by Leave a Comment


The News

Animal rights activists in over 30 cities around the world marked the first day of Japan’s notorious dolphin hunting season with “International Day of Action” protests, an annual event organized by The Dolphin Project. In NYC, about two dozen activists demonstrated in front of the Japanese consulate in midtown Manhattan, educating locals and tourists about the atrocity and demanding that the Japanese government put a stop to it:

During the hunt, which lasts about six months, fleets of Japanese fishing boats surround pods of dolphins off the coast and drive them into an isolated cove in Taiji, Japan, where the dolphins are snatched from the water to be sold to aquariums or killed for their meat. “It’s a bloodbath during which families are torn apart and massacred. It’s nothing short of an act of terror,”  said Phyllis Ottomanelli “Captivity is the driving force behind the hunts. If you pay to swim with dolphins or see them in an aquarium, then you have blood on your hands.”

The hunt was largely unknown to the mainstream public until The Cove, a documentary thriller about the hunt and the heroic activists working to expose it, was released and won the 2010 Academy Award for best documentary film.

The Cove is an Oscar-winning documentary film about the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan

As the 2017 hunt began, advocates around the world took to social media to raise awareness.  Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society which has engaged in direct action in an attempt to stop the massacre, wrote “Since the early Sixties, an insidious trade of intelligent, self-aware, sentient beings has been growing like a malignant cancer within human society. It is a slave trade that has been the cause of unimaginable misery and has claimed the lives of thousands of dolphins. This cruel industry has spread across Europe and Asia with hundreds of marine aquariums operating, many of them with grossly inadequate facilities.”

On September 1st, animal rights activists in over 30 cities around the world protested the Japan’s annual dolphin hunt.

The dolphins are slaughtered by “pithing” – stabbing them behind their blowholes with a metal rod. This method severs the spinal cord, paralyzing the dolphins and supposedly causing a rapid death. Often, however, the death is prolonged. In 2011 AtlanticBlue, a German conservation group, documented a dolphin moving for over four minutes after pithing. Activists with The Dolphin Project and Sea Shepherd have witnessed dolphins drown while being dragged by their tails to the butcher house.

The cove turns red with blood during the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan.

Kim Danoff, a Virginia-based veterinarian and animal rights activist told TheirTurn that babies often watch their parents being killed before themselves dying from stress or starvation: “We must continue to fight until Japan outlaws the trade and massacre of wild dolphins.”

Your Turn

To learn more about Japan’s annual dolphin hunt and to find out how you can help, please visit The Dolphin Project.


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Hundreds to Protest Japan’s Slaughter in the Water at Embassy

September 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment


The News

Thanks to The Cove and Blackfish, documentary films that expose the atrocities committed against wild and captive dolphins and whales, the public is rising up and fighting back against the worst offenders — Japan and Denmark. One protest at the Japanese embassy in England is six weeks away (Nov 7th at noon), and 277 people have already signed up to participate.  If you have any friends in or near London, please share this information.

In Taiji, Japan, thousands of dolphins are herded into the infamous “cove” each year and are either slaughtered for food or kidnapped for aquariums or swim with dolphin concessions. During each roundup, families are torn apart, and the besieged dolphins are tormented and held in nets with no food as their captors determine their fate.

In The Faroe Islands in Denmark, 1,000 gentle and intelligent pilot whales are driven into the shore each year and mercilessly butchered for meat in an annual ritual called “The Grind.”

In both Japan and Denmark, the government not only sanctions the brutality but also justifies these for-profit atrocities under the guise of tradition.

The Cove and Blackfish demonstrate the tremendous impact of documentation in general and undercover video in particular. These films, coupled with the direct action of Sea Shepherd and grass roots protests around the world, will assuredly lead to the demise of Japan and Denmark’s slaughter in the water. Following are the trailers:

THE COVE

BLACKFISH


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Japanese Newspaper Condemns Dolphin Roundup & Slaughter in Taiji

February 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment


The News

During the 2013 dolphin hunting season in Taiji, Japan, 834 dolphins were killed and 164 taken captive for aquariums and swim with dolphin concessions. In a ground-breaking editorial, The Japan Times calls for an end to the “herding, capturing and slaughtering of dolphins” in Taiji, challenging the government’s claims that the practice is a “tradition” that “adheres to the principles of the law.”

The cove in Taiji, Japan

Slaughter in the Cove

News & Opinion

Worldwide outrage, pressure from the U.S. Government, increased activism and resistance from within Japan will eventually lead to an end to the dolphin hunt. In the meantime, please encourage the people in your network to rent The Cove and to boycott aquariums and “swim with dolphin” concessions.


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