By Kirsten Massebeau
Hunters and trainers select bottlenose dolphins for captivity at The Cove Via Ric O’Barry Dolphin Project Livestream
Never has it been more clear that the captive industry is keeping the cruel and horrific dolphin drive alive in Taiji, Japan. On September 1st the dolphin drive season opened for a small group of men and their associate trainers from the dolphin brokering Taiji Whale Museum, and Dolphin Base in Taiji, Japan. The hunters drove a pod of approximately 60 bottlenose dolphins into the cove. After leaving the frantic dolphins overnight the captive selection process began. At the end of the day 18 young dolphins, mere children, were ripped from their families and taken to the harbor pens in preparation for a life of captivity. The remaining dolphins were then released. There was no slaughter because of an agreement with WAZA and the captive industry:
WAZA Ethics and Animal Welfare Committee briefing on general principles and
practice with particular reference to dolphin capture developments, 2010.
While the Ric O’Barry Dolphin Project and over 100 Japanese and foreign activists demonstrated on the shores of the Cove in support of the dolphins on September 1st, the opposing right-wing had a whale meat BBQ on the opposite shoreline broadcasting Hawaiian Luau music, and touting tradition. The Right Wingers put on a good show for this first dolphin drive but in fact it had nothing to do with eating dolphin meat but rather fulfilling the orders for display dolphins placed by aquariums and marine parks from all over the world.
Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project and the Japanese Group Flipper Japan: Japan Dolphins Day September 1, 2013 at “The Cove” Via Livestream
In her recent article, Hawaii’s Captive Dolphins Are Linked to the Taiji, Japan Brutal Captures, Candace Calloway Whiting highlights the role of Jay Sweeney DMV a collector and captor of dolphins for display. The presence of the captive industry in Taiji is well documented:
“It seems gruesome that one of the founding partners of Dolphin Quest (swim-with-dolphins facilities located in Hawaii and Bermuda), Dr. Jay Sweeney DVM, now spends his days carving dolphins out of wood, as he stood by while dolphins were carved up in Taiji. His direct involvement with the removal of dolphins and small whales from Japan to amusement parks in the U.S. is irrefutable.
This is fully documented in the film A Fall From Freedom, a clip of which is below. Sweeney continues to profit from the dolphins at Hilton Waikoloa Village and Kahala Mandarin Hotel, where people fork out huge funds to swim with the dolphins” (source)
The dolphin hunters and dolphin brokers of Taiji claim hunting dolphins is their right and their tradition:
“The southern part of Wakayama prefecture has little arable land with many precipitous mountains. Because of this, it has been natural for the local residents to take whales and dolphins which come close to the coast, and utilize them as food. In Japan, we utilize all parts of whales for various purposes not only as food but also as materials to make craft products. Since its beginning, the substance of our whaling has been different from that of other countries which, until petroleum came into use, killed an enormous number of whales for the sole purpose of obtaining whale oil, throwing the meat away into the ocean”(source).
In looking at all the evidence it seems while slaughter, and the meat maybe the byproduct the very non traditional capture of dolphins for modern marine parks and aquariums is not tradition. The only way to end the slaughter is to stop the show, stop the real exploiters those paying $150,000 dollars for a trained disposable dolphin from Taiji drive fisheries.
Be part of the solution!
Watch your Cove Monitors and Cove Guardians as they report from the cove daily as the drive season continues. Together we can make a difference! Be a voice for the dolphins!
Champions for Cetaceans 
It is terrible!! Dolphins are not for slaughter!
Looks like your ‘A Fall From Freedom’ embedded video isn’t available in the U.S. Here’s a link to the full documentary. ❤ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ompkCgimQ
Love and Light,
~Ana
Never has it been more clear that the captive
industry is keeping the cruel and horrific dolphin
drive alive in Taiji, Japan. On September 1st the
dolphin drive season opened for a small group of
men and their associate trainers from the dolphin
brokering Taiji Whale Museum, and Dolphin Base in
Taiji, Japan. The hunters drove a pod of
approximately 60 bottlenose dolphins into the cove.
After leaving the frantic dolphins overnight the
captive selection process began, may they rott in hell , , stupid bastard
Aloha Kristen –
Thank you for putting this information out there. I have just recently become aware and horrified by the terrible situation of captive dolphins and whales and drive hunts.
I can walk to the Dolphin Quest Kahala from my house and have been there many times for drinks/dinner. I am trying to formulate a plan to approach the hotel management and my neighbors – I want to do it effectively – though I feel like running into the lobby screaming at them..
Any direction /advice is appreciated…
PS..I am probably to right of you politically – a conservationist, I donate to causes you probably would support and the repeated use of “right wingers” is not welcoming to me – but that is your choice…I think dolphins and whales are something people from all over the political spectrum can get together on and wouldn’t that be nice. Mahalo
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they never mentioned the pilot whales in that agreement…thanks for sharing the information.
Only bottlenose dolphins were included in the WAZA Agreement but that is only for September. During Red October and the rest of the season the bottlenose will again be slaughtered with the pilot whales and all the other species included in their quota.
The sleepless nights I’ve spent after learning about these practices in Taiji last year and my involvement for the movement to stop this has been life changing for me. Thank you for posting this video. This is such an outrage.
Kirsten, thank you for writing about this. My heart is heavy with disgust and sadness regarding this deplorable agreement. We’ve come to learn, as cetacean advocates, that we should expect such detritus from the brokers and profiteers of enslavement, but usually it’s subtle and one has to dig to find the evidence. I never dreamed, in my worst nightmares, that we’d see such a blatantly public, overt gesture as this from the captive industry. To see major organizations (which allegedly “care” for the welfare of animals) negotiating with those who not only kill dolphins, but do so in the most unbearably slow, cruel way, is beyond comprehension. This situation is devoid of any capacity for positive rationalization whatsoever. I am, in a word, appalled.
Much love to you, sweetheart, and thank you for all you do. ❤
XOXOX
~Ana
Thank-you for your comment Ana. What I found ironic was the emphasis on eating dolphin meat when their objective is take the people of the sea for display and marine parks or rather cetacean prisons. These people say they care yet the truth has been revealed!