Poaching and Abuse of Dolphins in Japan

Poaching is an illegal practice of hunting animals that may be endangered or protected under a specific law from hunting a species. Taiji is a town in Japan clouded by admiration for dolphins and whales. In Taiji, Japan, a region that already had whale-hunting problems, the Japanese began to poach dolphins as well. The poaching begins in September and ends in March; these poachers slaughter 23,000 dolphins each year. Although the hunting is done illegally, the people involved go out of their way to make use of the dolphin meat. In the documentary “The Cove” following Ric O'Barry, a retired dolphin trainer trying to stop dolphin poaching and captivity, uncovers the truth about the fisherman being paid to poach these creatures. In an interview, he refers to “the popular tendency to misinterpret the ‘dolphin smile’ as a reflection of the animal’s emotional state”.
Methods
Fishermen use the method of cornering the dolphins into doing as they are instructed to do, using spear like weapons to kill these mammals. They lure the dolphins by taking advantage of their sensitivity to sound and echolocation.
How they are captured
The method of capturing these beautiful creatures is truly horrifying. Usually occurring at night, the poachers would get on their boats with long rods, carrying hammers in which they would hit the rods with to creating a “wall of sound” that would cause the dolphins to be filled with fear and concern. The poachers would then round up the dolphins with a net, and gear them towards the shore, boxing them in with nets and boats so that they could not escape. Once they were captured between land and the people who had the motive to kill, the people would take advantage of the helpless dolphins and begin to slaughter them. The parents would be separated from their young, causing the dolphins to cry out. This execution of emotion was their way of coping with what was about to happen. The fisherman would then have hooks on staffs and pull them into the boats, as they would drive them to bigger areas to dump the lifeless bodies after harvesting the meat that they needed. The poachers then sell the slaughtered dolphins to markets and sell the meat in local market places in Taiji, Japan. The meats were purchased by schools and would be served in school lunches. In schools in Japan, lunch is "compulsory". Usually the poachers are fisherman and simply profit from selling the bodies of the dolphins. The fishing occurs in private areas so when the dolphins are captured and slaughtered, they are in a secluded area in which others may not observe. In Taiji, it is illegal to protest or trespass on these lands. When tourists come into the country, they are put under investigation to make sure that they are not involved in these ways. Divers have gone undercover to try and prevent these proceedings to occur but are unsuccessful and are simply arrested or kicked out of the country. At the end of “The Cove”, O’Barry walked around a peace conference in Taiji, Japan with a television strapped onto him, displaying the slaughters occurring in secrecy during an International Whaling Commission meeting.
Events
The World Wildlife Fund Foundation also protects animals who may be endangered or on the verge of endangerment, including dolphins. Although this may be true, according to Ric O’Barry, none of these huge organizations are doing anything about the slaughtering.<ref name="The Cove" />

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