Japan town presses on with annual dolphin hunt
 
 
September 11, 2009 


Japanese fishermen riding a boat loaded with slaughtered dolphins.
 

Picture: 
http://www.canada.com/technology/Japan+town+presses+with+annual+dolphin
+hunt/1979729/story.html


TOKYO – A Japanese coastal town has gone ahead with its controversial 
dolphin hunt, shrugging off protests from animal-rights activists, 
local officials said Thursday.

Fishermen in Taiji town caught about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 
pilot whales on Wednesday, in their first catch since the fishery 
season started on September 1, Wakayama prefectural official Yasushi 
Shimamura said.

They plan to sell about 50 dolphins to aquariums nationwide and release 
the remainder back into the sea, while the whale meat will be sold for 
human consumption, an official at a local fishermen's cooperative said.

The town's annual dolphin hunt drew international attention earlier 
this year after the release of award-winning eco-documentary 'The 
Cove', in which a team of film-makers covertly covered the event in 
graphic detail.

After the film's release, the Australian coastal city of Broome ended 
its sister-city relationship with Taiji to protest the hunt.

Town officials said they would not slaughter any of the dolphins caught 
on Wednesday, but denied it was due to international pressure.

"We didn't release the rest of the dolphins because there have been 
protests against dolphin hunting from animal rights activists," said a 
fisheries cooperative official, who declined to give his name. "From 
the viewpoint of resource control, we've been occasionally releasing 
them on our own judgement in the past."

Hunting dolphins and small whales is not prohibited by the 
International Whaling Commission's ban on commercial whaling, but 
Japan's Fisheries Agency restricts the practice by handing out annual 
quotas to several fishing towns.

This year, Taiji was allocated a quota of about 2,300 small cetaceans 
including dolphins, prefectural official Shimamura said. Cetaceans are 
largely- hairless aquatic mammals, such as dolphins, whales and 
porpoises.

The southwestern Japanese town has strongly defended its tradition of 
hunting whales and dolphins.

"People in Taiji, as well as Wakayama prefecture ... hope that animal 
rights activists understand the cultural difference between them and 
us," Shimamura said.