Not even Mother Nature and Typhoon Talas could halt the dolphin drive in Taiji, Japan. Sources from Save Japan Dolphins and the Earth Island Institute are reporting the first kills of the season. The dolphin drive, delayed by the typhoon officially began yesterday, with boats leaving Taiji to begin the roundup. On Sep. 07, 2011, the slaughtering began.
Dolphin activists on site in Taiji
Many dolphin lovers and activists were hoping that Taiji fishermen would have a change of heart this dolphin hunting season. Surely the typhoon which caused such damage in the Wakayama Prefecture would have an effect on the fishermen there? Perhaps, just maybe, Japan had been witness to enough death after the March earthquake and recent typhoon, and would not want to see the Taiji cove crimson red this year. With 18 reported deaths and 50 people missing, at least that is what dolphin lovers hoped.
Taiji fishermen were impacted very little, despite being delayed by the adverse weather for a few days. Race car driver Leilani Münter who is in Taiji with Save Japan Dolphins and Ric O'Barry, reported yesterday that drive boats had left the harbor in Taiji and were out attempting to herd the dolphins. The net that separates the public beach from the killing cove, had also been erected, said Münter.
The dolphin slaughter begins in the killing cove
Just a few hours ago, Münter posted on her Facebook page, "Very sad to report that approximately 12 Risso's dolphins have been captured and are being killed right now in the cove." It was the moment dolphin activists dreaded, and the outrage and the sadness was palpable. "So sad," wrote Lauren Nicole; George Burkhardt added, "You would think that after a typhoon with all the damage, lack of water, people dead and missing those boats could be put to better use then keeping up with some silly tradition."
Supporters maybe heartsick, but they are not sitting idle. Dolphinspirit.org posted the fax numbers and emails of all Japanese officials with a plea to the public to make an appeal against the drive fishery. People are also being asked to visit Savejapandolphins.org, where donations can be made, petitions can be signed and letters sent to President Obama, Vice President Biden and the Japanese Ambassador to the US.
The Cove movie
It was with the release of The Cove movie in 2009, that the Western world truly witnessed the hunt in all of its brutal glory. The horrific clicks and shrieks of trapped dolphins being stabbed to death, along with the visual assault of waters churning red, pierced even the hardest of hearts. The Japanese ELSA Nature Conservancy however, has been fighting for dolphin conservation from inside Japan since 1976.
Recently, ELSA posted reports on the number of dolphins exported from Japan, and have been petitioning the Japanese people directly, to warn them of the mercury dangers and toxicity of dolphin meat. ELSA describes the dolphins in Taiji as virtual, "Industrial waste."
In the meantime, dolphin activists refuse to give up the fight. Sandy McElhaney said simply, "We will not give up until the waters of the Taiji cove run blue forever." Münter herself said that watching the dolphin killing was "emotionally draining," but she refuses to back down, "I won't let them chase me out of town, scare me, or let these dolphins die in vain. Their lives will be recorded ... [and] ... their deaths will be recorded." Watch Leilani's first video from the cove, where two of the dolphins killed she says, were a mother and a calf.
Read Leilani's first report on the killings from Taiji, where another 11 boats have just left Taiji harbor.
Elizabeth Batt - Elizabeth Batt is a former large animal nurse, certified NREMT, lover of equines and conservationist.
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