Activists Descend On Japanese Embassy To Protest Gruesome Dolphin Killing

Ruthless killing of dolphins leads to international outrage on Japan

Activists from Aliberation, ARAN & AFAR will gather outside the Japanese Embassy to protest the brutal slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. The activists will be flanked by a giant Banner that reads ‘Japan Stop Killing Dolphins’, whilst others hold "Shame on Japan" posters and distribute leaflets to passersby.

When: Wednesday, 21, 2007

Where: Embassy of Japan, Nutley Building, Merrion Centre, Nutley Lane,
Dublin 4

Time: 12.00 – 2pm

Map: http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/NR/rdonlyres/DC3D7CD1...t.pdf

Each year Japan brutally kills Dolphins and small Whales. Thousands are stabbed and hacked to death for profit. One of the main reasons that the killing continues is because very few people around the world even know it is happening.
Recently international coverage on the killing was broadcast worldwide when celebrities Hayden Panettiere and Australian actress Isabel Lucas, professional surfers Karlie Mackie, James Pribram, Karina Petroni and Jaymes Triglone together with model Hannah Fraser Rastovich who swam out in her trademark mermaid tail. Hayden Panettiere, star of TV's hit series "Heroes", paddled out on behalf of "Save the Whales Again!" She expressed that she felt the spirit of the dolphins who had been driven into the killing cove over the last 400 years. The kill takes place each year by fisher men working in small boats, using sounding rods below the water's surface to interfere with the dolphin's sonar and navigational abilities. Once disoriented whole families and pods of dolphins and small whales are driven into a shallow bay, which is then enclosed by a net stretched across the mouth of the bay. The fishermen usually injure a few of the captive dolphins with a spear thrust or a knife slash – dolphins will not abandon these wounded family members. Penned overnight, in the morning, they are mercilessly stabbed and hacked and they bleed to death, staining the water blood red. A few dolphins are kept alive and sold to dolphinariums, which number nearly
fifty in Japan, while the rest are killed to be sold as meat in markets and restaurants – a big business in Japan.
The Dominican Republic Government announced last week that the proposed export of twelve live dolphins ("the Taiji Twelve") from Taiji, Japan to Ocean World theme park in the Dominican Republic has been cancelled.