Footage reveals dolphin massacre

THE sea turned blood red when Japanese fishermen hacked to death dolphins they had trapped in coves around a small port.

An American anti-whaling group trying to stop the massacres released video footage yesterday of a 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 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.

“It’s a wholesale slaughter, which results in immense suffering for these animals,” said activist Nik Hensey. “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. Hunting dolphins is not banned by the International Whaling Commission, which has maintained a moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986.

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 even erected 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.