Risso’s dolphins await their fate in Taiji, Japan

As this drive hunt season commences as one of the bloodiest on record in recent years, WDCS is on the ground in Taiji, Japan, documenting these hunts and meeting with government and aquarium industry officials to encourage an end to these cruel and unnecessary hunts. Campaigner Courtney Vail of WDCS and filmmaker Hardy Jones of Bluevoice.org, together with Sakae Hemmi of Elsa Nature Conservancy, are providing accounts from the field as these hunts ensue.
 
On Friday 10th November, up to 10 Risso’s dolphins were driven into the bay in Taiji. They are expected to be killed very soon. Two days previously, WDCS reported the slaughter of 14 pilot whales in the same bay, their deaths only adding to the approximately 150 bottlenose and 50 Risso’s dolphins, 25 false killer whales and 75 other pilot whales that were slaughtered in the space of only one week in Taiji this drive hunt season. In addition, over 30 have been selected to send to aquariums in Japan for display to the public.

Hardy Jones reports from Taiji on the drive hunting of Risso’s dolphins on the 10th November:

“I’m standing above Hatajiri bay in the village of Taiji looking down upon between seven and ten Rissos dolphins. We watched over the last hour and a half as these dolphins were driven along the coast by a fleet of 7 boats, and driven into this bay where they are now held by two nets. They’re bobbing up and down, I can see the distinguishing pink and white that appear on the skin of these Rissos dolphins and the scratches that are quite distinguishable, even from this distance.
 
The dolphins are breathing, they are coming up and then swimming just below the surface, surfacing quite frequently, as this would be a sign of stress. I can only imagine the state of horror, shock and confusion that these poor animals are in now. Courtney Vail from WDCS, Sakae Hemmi from Elsa and myself from Blue Voice are here, and the feeling of helplessness and horror is really hard to describe to you. This is an ultimately sad, tragic scene, and these dolphins will be pushed into a small bay tomorrow and killed.”

To listen to Hardy Jones’ report, please visit: Bluevoice
 
Please send urgent but polite messages to Mr. Kazutaka Sangen, Town Mayor of Taiji and the Governor of Wakayama, Mr. Yoshiki Kimura, asking for the dolphins to be freed. Click here to send an e-card.

Please also leave a similar polite message for Mr. Yoshio Kobayashi, Director-General of Japan’s Fisheries Agency at this website.
  
WDCS condemns these continued dolphin slaughters in Taiji, one of only two towns in Japan still conducting drive hunts, and renews its call for an end to these cruel hunts. The hunts started a month early this season, and WDCS speculates that hunts commenced in September in order to gain an extra few weeks to fulfill its large dolphin quota. Up to 2,380 small whales and dolphins may be killed in Taiji’s hunts, which normally run between October and April, including bottlenose, striped, and Risso’s dolphins, and pilot whales and false killer whales.
 
In these hunts, groups of dolphins are rounded up by speedboats at sea and herded into a bay or harbour, where they are surrounded by nets and then slaughtered, or selected alive for trade in the lucrative aquarium industry. In April of this year, WDCS released its report, Driven by Demand, downloadable from the pdf file below, detailing the involvement of aquariums in these brutal hunts.
 
Dolphins are highly intelligent and socially-complex animals. Sentient and aware, these animals exhibit signs of great distress during their capture, round-up and prolonged slaughter.
 
“The methods and manner of slaughter employed in these drive hunts is almost unspeakable.  These dolphins face intense suffering as they are violently herded from the open ocean to near exhaustion, and then held in confinement until their throats are cut, taking sometimes several minutes to die. This is a brutal practice that has no place in a civilized society,“ said Courtney S. Vail, North American campaigns officer.

You can download a copy of the WDCS report 'Driven by Demand' here:

This file is attached as a PDF file. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file.

Source: WDCS