What happens during the Japanese drive hunts?

The most notorious of these "hunts" occurs in the village of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. Local fishermen sweep the area in fast boats and drive pods of dolphins towards the shore, where, terrified and panicking, they are trapped in a shallow bay by the fishing boats and nets.

Most of the dolphins are netted and then killed in the shallows with knives turning the water blood-red, or taken to a slaughterhouse alive, sometimes on the back of a flat-bed van, for a crude and brutal death. Their bodies are then hauled to a makeshift slaughter area for butchering into food for human consumption or pet food.

These hunts may last days, during which these complex and intelligent creatures will be trapped and stressed while being able to hear their counterparts being slaughtered.

Those dolphins which are not killed will have been chosen by marine parks or aquaria, destined for an impoverished and restricted life in captivity. Not restricted to Japan, these dolphins may end up in captive facilities worldwide once they become the captivity industry's property to be transferred to other marine parks around the world...

It is even possible that YOU may end up swimming with these dolphins captured from the dolphin drive hunts.

Image: © Sea Shepherd