太地町 Taiji – Dolphin Slaughter Season Starts
Dolphin activist Ric O’Barry claims that the people of Japan have never learned about the dolphin slaughter in Taiji because none of the major Japanese media have ever sent reporters to the ‘Killing Cove’ where the dolphins are slaughtered.
This year, thanks to the Sundance Film Festival awarding winning documentary ‘The Cove‘, many international journalists and camera crews from Japan have arrived in Taiji (Wakayama) this week. Although the killing season started on September 1, no blood has been seen in coves around Taiji so far.
Please watch the trailer and encourage your local cinema, university, NPO or club to show the documentary.
In this clip, the world famous National Geographic photographer and director Louie Psihoyos talks about the making of the documentary.
Links:
• The Cove Movie
• Oceanic Preservation Society
• Save Japan Dolphins
• Surfers for Cetaceans
• Take part – what can you do?
More information to follow.
Taiji has gone ahead with its annual dolphin hunt, despite protests from animal rights activists. Fishermen caught about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales, their first catch since the fishing season.
In what appears to be a concession to international opinion, some of the dolphins will be released rather than killed and sold for meat. Of the 100 dolphins caught in the hunt, 50 will be sold for slavery in aquariums nationwide at prices which are believed to reach $150,000. The whales will be sold as meat.
Broome, Taiji’s sister city in Australia, has officially ended its relationship with Taiji.
[...] As a special event, the society will be showing clips of Sundance Festival Awarded documentary ‘The Cove‘ about Ric O’Barry’s campaign to save the dolphin of Taiji from slaughter. See previous post, here. [...]