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Marching toward the Japanese embassy.© Jessica George/HSI |
Individuals across the globe united on Japan Dolphin Day, September 3, to express their dissent for the brutal drive fisheries in Japan which kill thousands of dolphins every year. Humane Society International (HSI) has been promoting and participating in Japan Dolphin Day since the event's founding in 2005. The day was designated as a time to speak up for the dolphin victims of the drive fisheries in Taiji, Japan.
Deadly Drive Fisheries
During drive hunts, pods of dolphins are herded into a shallow cove by fishermen in small boats and then are brutally killed with lances and knives. A few are kept alive to be sold into the captive dolphin industry, including swim-with-the-dolphins programs, where they may suffer for years. It is these profits from selling the dolphins into captivity which allows the hunt to prosper. The money is a sweet incentive for the fishermen and too few Japanese citizens know about the hunt to protest what is happening. In addition to being cruel, the hunts are also unsustainable, making this a conservation issue as well as a welfare one.
The Japanese government also gives the fishermen permission to continue the hunts because they consider the dolphins to be pests who eat too many of the fish around Taiji. Some of the dolphins who are killed are used for their meat which, recent studies have shown, has high levels of mercury and is not suitable for consumption by children or pregnant women. Unfortunately, dolphin meat continues to be sold in Japan despite the risks and without any warning from the government.
Rally in DC
At the Japanese Embassy in Washington, DC, nearly 50 people gathered to express their rage at Japan. Protestors chanted “Shame on Japan!” and “Dolphins deserve better!” as activists dressed as dolphins and fishermen marched to the embassy and then re-enacted the barbaric hunts. “Fishermen” stabbed piles of wailing “dolphins,” all in an effort to demonstrate the slow, painful deaths that dolphins are forced to endure in drive fisheries. Cars passing by honked their horns in support as they read the signs and saw the people making the world aware of this shameful slaughter.
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| Re-enactment of the slaughter.© Jessica George/HSI |
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Just two days before this year's Japan Dolphin Day, Japan’s unpopular Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda resigned over a political deadlock. Fukuda, who was in office for less than a year, did nothing to help end the cruelty of drive fisheries. As Japan begins to search for a new leader, dolphin advocates can only hope that Fukuda’s successor will have a humane ethic and end the grisly hunts once and for all.
Individuals and groups worldwide gathered at Japanese embassies and consulates on September 3 to show Japan that massacring dolphins is inexcusable and that the world is watching. “Japan’s seas are red with blood,” read one sign held by a protestor at the Washington, DC rally. The dolphins faced with this cruel death cannot speak for themselves, but their advocates all over the world did their best to bring attention to the animals' plight on the fourth annual Japan Dolphin Day.
