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WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, today releases a new report detailing the involvement of the aquarium industry in the dolphin ‘drive fishery’ in Japan, and collaborates with scientific and congressional representatives to call for an end to these cruel hunts

Washington, DC. – WDCS’s report, Driven by Demand, traces the evolution of the Japanese drive fisheries, or drive hunts, to the present day. For many years, fishermen have killed small cetaceans (whales and dolphins) along the coastlines of Japan with little regard for the humaneness or sustainability of the hunts. The cruelty endured by dolphins and whales caught in the drive hunts is immense. Corralled by motor boats and disoriented by loud noises, they are driven into the shallows and systematically slaughtered with knives.

However, demand for live dolphins from marine parks and aquaria is now underpinning Japan’s drive hunts. National and international aquaria and marine parks rely on drive hunters to provide a source of live dolphins for their displays, shows and human-dolphin interactive programs, thereby subsidizing the hunts.

Although Japan has conducted drive hunts for many years, evidence suggests that this inhumane practice may have been dying out. With little demand for dolphin meat, an increase in the popularity of whale and dolphin watching, and confinement of the hunts to just a few villages, drive hunts were becoming a thing of the past. However, the high prices offered by aquaria for live dolphins have now become an important motivation for the hunts.

Dolphins are intelligent, sensitive and socially complex animals; far-ranging, fast-moving and deep-diving predators. Scientific studies have shown that bottlenose dolphins, one of the main species targeted in the drive hunts, are capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror, a trait shared only by the great apes and humans.

WDCS unites with a growing movement of diverse interests calling for an end to the hunts:

• Senate Resolution 99 , introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in April 2005, urges countries to stop the brutal treatment of these animals. • Marine mammal scientists will soon issue a statement calling for an end to the hunts, insisting that the sourcing of animals from this fishery, for any purpose, is a violation of professional codes of ethics for collection of animals from the wild.
• Several zoo and aquarium associations have issued statements against the drives, although they have yet to take definitive action against member institutions that continue to source from drive hunts.

“This cooperation between the aquarium industry and the drive hunts is a devastating development for Japan’s dolphins,” said Courtney S. Vail, North American campaigns officer for WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. “We will continue our efforts to expose the connection between the drive hunts and the aquarium industry and educate the public to put an end to this cruel practice. Procurement of dolphins for entertainment through these grisly drive hunts is not only a violation of the code of ethics of many of these facilities, it is a violation of the public trust.”