Dolphin massacre turns sea blood red

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This is sickening!

  

 http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_833468.html

    

 

 Ananova:  

 

Dolphin massacre turns sea blood red

 

Animal activists have released a video of Japanese fisherman hacking to

death

dolphins they had trapped at a small port.

 

 

 

An American anti-whaling group trying to stop the massacre took footage of

the recent hunt that shows blood-filled coves and several dead dolphins

being

brought ashore in boats.

 

 

 

The tape, shot by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, graphically

captures

the end of a hunt, in which fishermen pound on the water, causing waves that

confuse the mammals' sense of direction, and then corral dolphins into small

coves where they can be more easily killed with sickles.

 

Though subject to government-set quotas, the hunts are not banned under

Japanese law and are not subject to international regulations because they

are done

near the shore.

 

Several dead or dying dolphins can be seen on the boats, bleeding profusely,

in the footage. Activist Nik Hensey said: " It's a wholesale slaughter, which

results in immense suffering for these animals. It's a sight that one just

can't imagine. "

 

The mayor and officials in Taiji refused to comment, but a fisherman's union

representative said the kills are conducted as humanely as possible and

pointed out the hunts have been part of local culture for 400 years. Hunting

dolphins is not banned by the International Whaling Commission.

 

Fishermen in Taiji regularly conduct dolphin hunts during the October to

April season. They have caught more than 60 striped dolphins so far this

year

under the government quota system. The meat is usually canned and sold in

supermarkets.

 

But because of international pressure for an end to the killing of dolphins

and the bloodiness of their hunting method, fishermen here have tried to

keep

out of the public eye. They do not permit videos of their hunts, refuse

on-the-record interviews and have put barriers along the shoreline to

discourage

cameramen.

 

The Sea Shepherd activists said they managed to get the video by camping out

in the town for several weeks. Three activists from the California-based

conservation group were briefly detained by Japanese police after trying to

stop a

dolphin hunt and scuffling with a fisherman earlier this month.

 

The activists - a Briton, a Canadian and an American all in their 20s - were

held for about nine hours of questioning before being released. They weren't

charged with any crimes. Japan is one of the few major fishing nations that

continues to support the hunting of whales and dolphins.

 

© Associated Press

 

 

Story filed: 11:59 Wednesday 29th October 2003

 

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