Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Taiji in western Japan will resume its annual dolphin hunt even after an Australian town suspended its sister-city ties because of the killing and a documentary has focused attention on the seaside village.

The hunt, in which dolphins are caught at sea or corralled into coves and impaled, starts today and lasts through February in the town 130 kilometers (81 miles) south of Osaka. Dolphin hunting for food in Japan dates back as far as 9,000 years and the town’s hunt is legal under international and domestic law, according to a Web site operated by Taiji’s fishing association.

Taiji’s fishermen will go ahead with the hunt, an official with the association, who declined to give his name, said by telephone last week.

Worldwide attention on Taiji increased with the release this summer of “The Cove,” a documentary by U.S. filmmakers that shows the dolphin cull through footage shot with hidden cameras. The council of Broome, a town in northwestern Australia that has had formal ties with Taiji for 28 years, last month voted to suspend the relationship “while the practice of harvesting dolphins exists.”

Taiji government spokesman Hironobu Ryono said yesterday by telephone he couldn’t comment on the relationship with Broome because the Australian town hasn’t informed him of the change. The connection between the towns goes back to the 19th century, when pearl divers from Taiji emigrated to Broome, he said.

“My understanding is that our fishermen are preparing for the hunt this season, and I haven’t heard that there is any change in plans,” Ryono said.

‘Atrocity’

According to Japan’s Fisheries Agency, 1,623 dolphins were killed in 2007 in Wakayama, the prefecture where Taiji is located, the second-highest number after Iwate in northern Japan. Eight of Japan’s 47 prefectures are permitted to hunt dolphins, with the number killed targeted at around 20,000 annually, according to the agency.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a U.S.-based group that regularly sends protest ships to the Southern Ocean near Antarctica to try to stop Japan’s government-sponsored whaling fleet from hunting minke and fin whales there, said in an e-mail statement it’s aware of Taiji’s plans to cull dolphins.

“We have an ongoing campaign to defend the dolphins, and we intend to continue putting pressure on Japan to end this atrocity,” Amy Baird, a spokeswoman for the group, said in the message.

To contact the reporter on this story: Masatsugu Horie in Osaka at mhorie3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 1, 2009 00:38 EDT