As we brace ourselves for more reports from the field, we are forced to reflect on the complexity of this issue, and our efforts to ultimately stop these brutal hunts.
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. This devastatingly cruel practice involves the corralling of dolphins at sea and driving them into the confines of the cove in Taiji. Here they are slaughtered for meat or kept alive for sale to marine parks and aquaria across the globe. Yearly quotas for these drive hunts reach into 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.
WDCS continues to work for an end to these brutal drive hunts and will air a web campaign on this issue in November. Meanwhile, to politely express your opposition to these terrible hunts, you can write to the Ambassador at the Japanese embassy in your country, using the contact details and template letter posted below.
Thank you for your support!
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]
Click here for a map and contact info of the 16 Japanese Consulate-General offices located across the United States.
Dear Ambassador Fujisaki:
I am 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 17,000 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,