The new film, The Cove, which opened in August across the United States, profiles the dramatic efforts of a small group of activists to document and expose the annual slaughter of thousands of dolphins in the Japanese drive hunts. This documentary exposes these hunts in a dramatic action film that has received numerous accolades and commendations from film festivals across the globe over the past year since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, USA in January.
Unfortunately, various media have reported that100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales were driven into Taiji's infamous cove yesterday. See
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gZGp3N9W3ylsE0f3vCW_zMAgUOnA According to these reports, 50 bottlenose dolphins will be sold to aquariums in Japan and the remainder released. The fishermen reportedly slaughtered the pilot whales for human consumption. The dolphin drive hunts occur every year from September through April, and are a brutal reminder that we have a very long way to go towards securing a safe and humane future for all cetaceans. Japan has the world's second largest number of aquariums keeping dolphins. WDCS calls on the Japanese Associate of Zoos and Aquariums to end its procurement of dolphins from the wild, including the drive hunts.
The drive hunts in Japan are a devastatingly cruel practice that involves the corralling of dolphins at sea and driving them into the confines of small coves in Taiji and Futo, Japan. Here, they are slaughtered for meat or kept alive for sale to marine parks and aquaria across the globe. This is not a subsistence kill but a small industry regulated by the Japanese government. Yearly quotas for both villages are in the thousands, where small cetaceans of several species including bottlenose dolphins, striped dolphins, spotted dolphins, false killer whales and short-finned pilot whales, are taken. No drive hunts have taken place in Futo since 2004 and the focus is on Taiji, where the hunts occur each season.
Since The Cove was released, Ric OBarry and the SaveJapanDolphins coalition have been successful in encouraging the shire of Broome in Western Australia to suspend its historic ties and Sister City relationship with Taiji. On August 22, the city council voted unanimously to halt relations until Taiji discontinues its drive hunts, and offered assistance in finding economic alternatives to the hunts. Broome cites the mercury level in the dolphin meat and the cruel methods involved in the drive hunts as the motivation for suspending this formal relationship with Taiji.
WDCS and the Swiss organisation, OceanCare, also have recently had a representative in Taiji accompanying Ric O'Barry, who stars in The Cove. During their visit to Taiji no dolphins were hunted there. Only days after Ric and his colleagues left Taiji, the hunts have begun.
Please help us put an end to the dolphin killing in Japan by going to see the The Cove and taking part in activities to support it. The movie opened in July and August in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and will hit UK and other European markets in October. Select international locations will be announced. Please follow the link below to find the location, dates and cinemas nearest you!
WDCS will continue to work for an end to these brutal drive hunts. We have been active in confronting the dolphin drive hunts in Japan on a number of levels, from raising awareness of the hunts, taking part in peaceful protests and visiting Japan to document them. We have worked with the marine mammal scientific community to garner a public statement against these hunts, and helped secure a congressional resolution condemning the practice. WDCS has also worked to secure the acknowledgement of the public display industry of its complicity in fueling the dolphin drive hunts through the demand generated by marine parks and aquaria that either directly, or indirectly, source live dolphins from these hunts. And within Japan, we have developed an educational campaign with our Japanese colleagues to educate the public about whales, dolphins and their suffering in drive and other hunts. In the next few years, WDCS will seek to expand its education program within Japan and continue its outreach work on location in Taiji. See our report, Driven by Demand and www.drivenbydemand.org.
Things that you can do!
* Join us for the annual International Day of Protest against the dolphin drive hunts! Details will be forthcoming as the time and locations are announced for Embassies and Consulates around the world. WDCS will be working with other groups to hold its annual protest in Boston!
* Send a letter to your nearest Japanese Embassy or Consulate. An e-protest form is available at our dedicated website at www.drivenbydemand.org , or adapt the following text and send to the following contacts:
Mr. Yukio Hatoyama
Prime Minister Elect of Japan
Fax: +81-3-3581-3883
E-mail: http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment.html
Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki
Embassy of Japan in Washington D.C.
2520 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington D.C. 20008-2869
Fax: 202-328-2187
E-mail: [email protected]
Dear Ambassador Fujisaki:
I recently saw the documentary film The Cove and was alarmed to find out that more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises are brutally killed each year off the coast of Japan.
Dolphin drive hunts
One method of hunting is the drive hunt, in which large groups of small whales and dolphins are rounded up using boats and driven towards the shore where they are trapped in a bay or cove using nets. The animals are then killed in the shallows with knives or taken away to a slaughterhouse. The hunt can take place over a number of days, with the animals trapped and frightened. The slaughter process itself is crude and brutal. In addition, Japanese consumers are being sold dolphin meat, containing dangerously high levels of mercury, often labeled as whale meat.
Fueled by the aquarium industry
A number of the trapped animals are kept alive and selected by aquariums and marine parks that pay large sums of money for animals to display in their facilities; this is the financial backbone of the drive hunts and is increasingly becoming the motivating factor behind the continuation. The dolphins taken alive are handled crudely, many dying of stress during the process or facing shortened, impoverished lives in captivity.
Hand harpoon hunts
The Japanese hunt of up to 17,700 Dall’s porpoise each year is the largest hunt of any whale, dolphin or porpoise species in the world. Hunters target mothers with calves, as the mothers will not leave their calves and are consequently slower and easier to catch. The calves are left to die.
People in Japan are unaware of the hunts
Many Japanese people are unaware that these hunts occur in their country. Japan’s Fisheries Agency directs fishermen to hide evidence of the hunts from the public eye, erecting tarpaulins and tents behind which the dolphins are slaughtered.
Dolphins are wondrous creatures in many ways. Did you know that the bottlenose dolphin — like great apes and humans — can recognize itself in a mirror? Family bonds are extremely strong, and one dolphin will assist another who is ill, or in childbirth, or unable to care for her young. Today these sentient, caring creatures are very much in need of your immediate action.
I respectfully ask that the Japanese government revoke the permits that allow these hunts to continue.
Sincerely,