Japan will kill 10-15,000 dolphins and porpoises this year - what you can do

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SEA SHEPHERD INTERNATIONAL

 

October 23, 2000

 

JAPAN'S DOLPHIN SLAUGHTER IS ON AGAIN

- Officials instruct: " Keep out of public view "

 

 

The slaughter of dolphins by Japanese fishermen for sale to commercial

markets for human and domestic animal consumption resumed this month.

 

Warned by the Japan Fisheries Agency to " keep dolphin killings out of public

view, " those conducting the " drive fisheries " at coastal towns once waited

until after dark to herd dolphins into shore, trap them in nets and

slaughter them, and claimed the dolphins had beached themselves. In October

1999, Japan's Whale and Dolphin Action Network (IKAN), caught a daylight

dolphin drive on videotape at the port of Futo. When the tape was shown at

the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Adelaide,

Australia, last June, the Japanese delegation walked out.

 

" Japan's dolphin hunt kicked into high gear in 1986, the year the ban on

commercial whaling went into effect, " said Paul Watson, president of Sea

Shepherd International. " Japan is steadily hunting its coastal cetacean

populations to extinction. By 1995, a single species -- Dall's porpoise --

was being taken at a rate of 17,000 per year. Hundreds of boats are licensed

to kill, and they have severely depleted, in sequence, populations of

striped dolphins, pilot whales, beaked whales, and Dall's porpoise. "

 

The crossbow and hand harpoon fishery kills 10,0000-15,000 dolphins and

porpoises annually. The drive fisheries, killing 1,000-2,000 dolphins, are

driven by the dolphin captivity industry, which pays fishermen up to $30,000

each for a few live dolphins for aquariums and amusement parks, with the

rest of the captured pods consigned to slaughter. The hunts take place every

year between October and April. A recent Environmental Investigation Agency

report revealed that Japan has killed more than 400,000 dolphins and small

cetaceans over the last 20 years.

 

" There's no control and no enforcement, " said Andrew Christie, information

director for Sea Shepherd International. " Japan routinely ignores

resolutions by the International Whaling Commission to at least reduce the

slaughter to the point where its numbers do not threaten the existence of

the targeted species. The federal government passes along responsibility for

quota enforcement to the local prefectures where the drive hunts take place,

and the prefectures pass responsibility to the fishing cooperatives, which

consist of the fishermen who do the killing. They promptly report to the

government that they are not killing too many dolphins. "

 

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ACTIONS TO TAKE:

Send a fax to Japan Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori:

(0) 81-3-5511-8855

 

or send him an e-mail from this website:

http://www.iijnet.or.jp/sorifu/kantei/foreign/comment.html

 

Fax the Embassy of Japan in Washington, DC:

(202) 265-9482

 

US citizens: Convey your support and thanks to Rep. Bill Delahunt, for

introducing the resolution in the House of Representatives calling on

President Clinton not to support Japan's bid to gain a permanent seat on the

U.N. Security Council unless it stops whaling. Urge him to add language

opposing Japan's unsustainable dolphin slaughter.

Congressman Bill Delahunt

1317 Longworth House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

(202) 225-3111

Fax: (202) 225-5658

william.delahunt

 

 

]Sea Shepherd International

P.O. Box 2616

Friday Harbor, WA 98250

(360) 370-5500

http://www.seashepherd.org

seashepherd