/ 21 January 2014

Japan finishes biggest dolphin slaughter yet

Sea Shepherd says the fishermen selected 52 dolphins to keep alive for sale to aquariums and other customers.
Sea Shepherd says the fishermen selected 52 dolphins to keep alive for sale to aquariums and other customers.

An activist group says Japanese fishermen completed the slaughter of 250 dolphins trapped recently in the biggest roundup it has witnessed in the last four years.

A video released on Tuesday by the environmental group Sea Shepherd shows dozens of fishermen and divers surveying the dolphins after they were confined to a cove with nets.

Sea Shepherd reported that the dolphins were corralled into Taiji’s "infamous killing cove", featured in the 2009 documentary film The Cove.  

Sea Shepherd says the fishermen selected 52 dolphins to keep alive for sale to aquariums and other customers. A rare albino bottlenose dolphin calf was taken to the Taiji Whale Museum. 

Of the rest, about 40 were killed and the others released.

The annual hunt in the village of Taiji received high-profile criticism when US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy tweeted about it last weekend.

The fishermen say the hunt is part of their tradition and call foreign critics who eat other kinds of meat hypocritical. – Sapa-AP