Furor Erupts as Dolphins Set for Slaughter at Japan Cove

Annual hunt at Taiji again under fire as 200+ animals await slaughter
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 19, 2014 12:42 PM CST
Furor Erupts as Dolphins Set for Slaughter at Japan Cove
In this Wednesday, July. 3, 2013 photo, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin.   (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

More than 200 bottlenose dolphins await their deaths in Japan's Taiji cove—made infamous in 2009 documentary The Cove—and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is doing its best to draw attention and outrage to the annual slaughter. As CNN reports, Japanese fishermen herded a pod of 250 or so dolphins into the cove on Friday; a total of 37 dolphins, including an albino calf, have been separated from the larger group to be sold to aquariums, or as Sea Shepherd calls it, "a lifetime of imprisonment." It doesn't sound like a peaceful process: Two dolphins have been killed. Slaughter of the rest, which will be harvested for their meat, is expected to begin tomorrow.

Sea Shepherd has been live-streaming video and tweeting from Taiji, with one update today reading, "Many of the 200+ Bottlenose dolphins who are in still the cove are visibly bloody & injured from their attempts to escape the killers." They've attracted the attention of new US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, who tweeted that she was "deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing." (More dolphins stories.)

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