Taiji Dolphin Hunts Closing Down for Season

By Ric O’Barry
Campaign Director
Dolphin Project

Our volunteer Cove Monitor Tim Burns reports that the Taiji dolphin hunters are cleaning up the slaughterhouse and putting their banger poles away for the season.

Due to our relentless campaign of educating the Japanese people about the dangers of eating mercury-contaminated dolphin meat, the demand for such meat is way down in Japan.  And the hunters have killed far fewer dolphins than last year, according to our estimates.

We’ll have more on this later this evening.

Thank you all for your efforts for the dolphins!

Our volunteer Cove Monitors are real champions, and they all deserve our thanks for their time, money and energy under very difficult conditions.  (Although Tim Burns is getting in quite a bit of surfing these days!)

Thank you one and all!

This is not the end, of course.  The dolphin hunters will be back on September 1st.  And, like last year, there is a good chance if they come across any pilot whales while they are fishing that they will try to harpoon them or chase them into the Cove.  Let’s redouble our efforts.

I promise you I will be there, too, on Sept. 1st with our Dolphin Project Team.