The Taiji dolphin drive hunt takes place every year from September to April. Right now in Taiji cove, Japan, around 250 dolphins are being held captive, including an extremely rare albino bottlenose dolphin, worth millions. A group of fishermen rounded up these dolphins, herding them into a small cove enclosed by a net. Tomorrow morning, the dolphins will be brutally slaughtered for human consumption or selected to be transported to aquariums to be put into captivity.

This is the largest pod the fishermen have capured in years.

An organisation called 'Sea Shepherd' are doing all they can to stop the slaughters, but they need to raise awareness for the slaughters to be stopped.

What do you think about the slaughters?

This is an example of a cove the dolphins are held in.



Updates:
1. (via ibtimes.com)
"Sea Shepherd tweeted at approximately 7:30 p.m. Friday EST (9:30 a.m. Saturday JST) that the rare albino bottlenose dolphin calf has been taken to the Taiji Whale Museum. As of 8:30 p.m. Friday EST (10:30 a.m. Saturday JST), Sea Shepherd claims 14 dolphins have been captured."
2. (via Sea Shepherd's facebook page)
"One more skiff has left with a captive dolphin, growing the total to 25 Bottlenose dolphins taken into a life of imprisonment today."
3. Unfortunately, one of the dolphins didn't survive being transported and was sent to the butcherhouse, but other than that, no dolphins were killed today. The rest of the pod's fates are going to be decided tomorrow.
4. (via Sea Shepherd's facebook page)
"Today was the second day of the captive selection process in the killing cove as 200 plus dolphins were tormented for another grueling 8 hours. The dolphin killers were dividing families as they herded each dolphin one by one under tarps for trainers to select the more suitable for enslavement.
Many of the pod sustained multiple injuries. The process was bloody and brutal as killers manhandled and wrestled these dolphins into transfer nets. We witnessed killers in skiffs deliberately run over the pod several times while attempting to section off the pod into smaller groups.
A total of 15 dolphins were taken today from the cove via sling and transferred to the Taiji harbor sea pens and several captive facilities in Taiji.
The remaining pod is still being held for a third night and will await their fate until sunrise tomorrow. We expect that most of the pod will be slaughtered and some too small to claim for quota will be driven back out to sea to fend for themselves.

One Pantropical Spotted dolphin was found dead in the Taiji harbor holding pens where it was quickly hidden under a tarp and dragged to the butcher house. This dolphin was from the captives taken just a few days ago from the cove."
5. (via Sea Shepherd's facebook page)
"After the trainers and killers have taken 11 Bottlenose dolphins today, the overall number of dolphins abducted from their families over the last three days has risen to 51. Not only is captivity not part of culture as the killers claim, it is exactly what funds the gruesome slaughter.

The remaining 200+ Bottlenose dolphins that were not selected for captivity remain in the cove for a fourth night without food. Those that remain will be slaughtered in morning after they spend their last night on earth hungry and dehydrated, bloody and injured, scared, and stressed."

Kaisly a dit :

Right now in Taiji cove, Japan, around 250 dolphins are being held captive, including an extremely rare albino bottlenose dolphin, worth millions. A group of fishermen rounded up these dolphins, herding them into a small cove enclosed by a net. Tomorrow morning, the dolphins will be brutally slaughtered for human consumption

worth millions? yea sure, let's eat them
wow I hope they [the dolphins] just stay where they are

This is freaking horrible.

What do I think of it???
I think this is an example of how awful people are.

they better put that albino in an aquarium

Unicorm a dit :

they better put that albino in an aquarium

They better do.

Infact, I love dolphins. Why are they killing them?

Unicorm a dit :

they better put that albino in an aquarium

They did. But the tanks are tiny in the aquarium they put him in (Taiji Whale Museum).

That's just cruel...

Having empathy I actually want to save them .__.

I was lucky enough to get the chance to swim with wild dolphins out in the open ocean and even then, they were friendly and seemed to only have wanted to play with us. It's sad seeing people slaughtering such intelligent and compassionative animals.

There's a petition you can sign to help stop the dolphin slaughters. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/stop-the-dolphin-slaughter/

Theres 113k signatures, they need 200k

Please help as much as you can


E:

Jjaakkee a dit :

It'd be nice to post a deadline (If they have one) for the 200k goal. That way it's emphasizing the issue.

I can't find a deadline, but the quicker the better as there are 200-ish dolphins still being held in the small pens. The fishermen are catching them all the time, this is just the biggest pod they've caught in years so a lot more people are hearing about it.


Some more information:
"The World Association for Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) is the world's largest network of zoos and aquariums around the world. Some members of the international aquarium and zoo industry are strongly connected to the Japanese dolphin slaughter, in that they pay top dollar for dolphins deemed suitable for commercial exploitation in dolphin shows and captive dolphin swim programs. In Taiji, live bottlenose dolphins have been sold for as much as $154,000. The dolphin massacres in Japan will continue for as long as members of the international dolphin display industry reward the fishermen with thousands of dollars for animals that are deemed suitable for commercial exploitation in captivity." -straight from the petition website.


A video of the rare albino bottlenose dolphin calf in the extremely small tank at Taiji Whale Museum (via @OmarSeaShepherd on twitter): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsT19HKQhwE&feature=youtu.be

Kaisly a dit :

There's a petition you can sign to help stop the dolphin slaughters. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/stop-the-dolphin-slaughter/

Theres 113k signatures, they need 200k

Please help as much as you can

Okay, I signed it.

Kaisly a dit :

There's a petition you can sign to help stop the dolphin slaughters. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/stop-the-dolphin-slaughter/

Theres 113k signatures, they need 200k

Please help as much as you can

It'd be nice to post a deadline (If they have one) for the 200k goal. That way it's emphasizing the issue.

Nezumini a dit :

Okay, I signed it.

Thanks.
---------------
If you guys wanna keep up with what's happening, here's some links you can use:

https://www.facebook.com/SeaShepherdCoveGuardiansOfficialPage?ref=ts&fref=ts (Sea Shepherd facebook page)
https://twitter.com/SeaShepherd
https://twitter.com/OmarSeaShepherd
https://twitter.com/CoveGuardians
http://www.seashepherd.org/cove-guardians
http://savejapandolphins.org/

Incase you were wondering, Sea Shepherd is a non profit organisation trying to raise awareness of the Taiji dolphin slaughters. There's a livestream at 7am Japan time (10pm GMT tonight) on http://livestream.seashepherd.org/
Quite a few news websites have updates on the events too.

Satash a dit :

This is freaking horrible.

Welcome to the Reality of HUmanity

Some photos from 20th Jan.

poor dolphins
fucking humans

Taeyeonrawr a dit :

poor dolphins
fucking humans

ikr!! this is just like animal cruelty

:(
i hate seeing animals suffer

and i hate it even more when they are going to be killed for no reason

horrible humans!

this is so fricking sad.

Leahcoollol a dit :

they are going to be killed for no reason

Kaisly a dit :

the dolphins will be brutally slaughtered for human consumption or selected to be transported to aquariums to be put into captivity.

did you even read the op or did you just look at the picture and go 'what the fuck'