Dolphin hunting, a practice presented as a constituent element of Japanese culture but controversial abroad, will resume on 1 September in Japan. The season is due to end in March.
During these hunting parties, the dolphin fishermen push the cetaceans into a narrow bay by knocking on their boats to disorient them. Healthy young dolphins are selected to be sent to aquariums and dolphinariums, while the rest are killed.
Fishermen repeatedly ram long metal tubes just behind the blowhole, to damage the spine. Some animals, in a panic, often find themselves trapped in nets, suffocate and drown. The mammals sometimes also smash into rocks and succumb to their injuries.
The authorities of the port city of Taiji, in the west of the Japanese archipelago, have opened a temporary police station responsible for keeping an eye on possible protest actions organised by animal welfare activists.
Japan fiercely defends its whaling and dolphin hunting. The dolphins are still hunted for their meat, but it is above all the rising demand for specimens to exhibit in dolphinariums that fuels this practice, notes Sandra Altherr, of the German animal rights organisation Pro Wildlife. A trained dolphin can be worth some €50,000, she explains.
China is the biggest customer. However, Japan also sells dolphins to Russia, Thailand, Mexico, Vietnam, Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia.
