Each year, Japan kills more than 20,000 dolphins, most of whom are butchered for food. The most notorious of the dolphin hunts is the "drive fishery" near the village of Taiji, where pods of dolphins are driven into shallow coves and, amid total panic and chaos, are killed by having their throats slit with knives or being stabbed with spears. The water turns red with the dolphins blood, and the air fills with their screams. This past October, the annual drive fishery in Taiji was witnessed and filmed by activists, who declared it to be one of the most violent hunts to date.
Dolphins are selected from drive fisheries to be sold to aquariums around the world. The survivors of this nightmare are not necessarily the lucky ones, as they are doomed to be exploited as attractions at theme parks and resort hotels, forced to perform silly tricks for food, swim with tourists, and endure being hand-fed and petted by curiosity seekers. The majority of their time will be spent swimming around in circles in tiny, barren concrete tanks.
In Taiji, 12 dolphins were roughly removed from the water and separated from their podmates, who were then butchered. The animals are awaiting export to Ocean World Adventure Park, a tourist resort in the Dominican Republic, where visitors pay big bucks to swim with captive dolphins.
What You Can Do
Please sign this petition to urge the country to deny import of the Taiji 12 dolphins, and insist that they be returned to their ocean home |