Taiji Dolphin Hunt Starts With Fewer Protesters Than Last Year, Town Says

Fishermen in the Japanese town of Taiji, whose dolphin slaughter was depicted in the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” resumed their annual hunt with fewer protesters than last year, a local official said.

“The hunt just started, even though they couldn’t catch any dolphins,” Masaki Wada, a spokesman for the town office, said today by telephone. “It is so quiet here. I saw only about 10 protesters.”

Wada said the protesters were more numerous and “vigorous” the previous year, when Ric O’Barry, a former American dolphin trainer who appeared in the documentary, visited Taiji near the start of the hunt. The protesters are both Japanese and foreigners, he said.

O’Barry said last week in a statement on the SaveJapanDolphins.org website that he planned to avoid the town this year on Sept. 1 over concern that “extreme nationalist groups” would confront protesters.

“We will not play the game that the nationalist groups want us to play,” he said in the statement. “We will be elsewhere in Japan, talking to the media, explaining the problem.”

Of Japan’s annual quota of 20,000 dolphins, about 1,500 are killed or sold to aquariums by fishermen in Taiji, which is on the Pacific coast about 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Osaka. Taiji’s practice of “oikomi hunting,” in which dolphins are herded into a bay in preparation for slaughter, drew worldwide criticism after the documentary was released.

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