Up to 22,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales are brutally killed each year by Japanese fishermen in three different hunts. In the last two decades, over 400,000 dolphins and small whales have been killed in and around the coast of Japan, for human food, pet food and fertilizer. The small cetacean species that are exploited in Japan’s ‘drive’ hunts, ‘hand-harpoon’ hunts and ‘Small Type Coastal Whaling’ include the Dall’s porpoise, Risso’s dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, short-finned pilot whale, striped dolphin, spotted dolphin, false killer whale and Baird’s beaked whale.
In Japan’s drive hunts, hundreds of small whales and dolphins may be rounded up and driven into a cove where they are butchered with knives. Some are spared the knife, but are selected by representatives of the aquarium and public display industry for future performances or swim-with-the-dolphin programs. In this way, the captivity industry provides additional financial motivation for these kills which have to be subsidized by the government in order to continue.
Besides the crude and inherently cruel methods used in Japan’s dolphin hunts, they are also probably profoundly unsustainable. They defy the repeated recommendations of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and its Scientific Committee and even contradict the Government of Japan’s frequently stated claim that it pursues a policy of ‘sustainable utilization of marine resources’. Furthermore, the meat and blubber from the dolphins taken in these drives are highly polluted with mercury and organic contaminants like PCBs, and pose a risk to those who consume the meat.
. The reds will be crawling from all corners of the woodwork, now.
