Bad weather delays kickoff of Japan's dolphin hunting season

The controversial six-month dolphin hunting season began on Monday in the Japanese town of Taiji, but bad weather will delay any killing, a local official told AFP.

The annual catch, in which people from the southwestern town corral hundreds of dolphins into a secluded bay and butcher them, was thrust into the global spotlight in 2010 when it became the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove.

"The dolphin-hunting season started today and will last until the end of February," said an official of the Taiji fisheries association, adding the season for hunting pilot whales, which also begins this week, will last until April.

But bad weather on Monday meant there would be no hunting on that day, he said.

Environmental campaigners are already in position to watch the hunt, the official said.

Last season, activists from international environmental group Sea Shepherd, who call themselves "Cove Guardians", streamed live footage of the dolphin capture.

Earlier this year, the slaughter sparked renewed global criticism after US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy tweeted her concern about the "in humaneness" of the hunt.

Defenders say it is a tradition and point out that the animals it targets are not endangered, a position echoed by the Japanese government.

They say Western objections are hypocritical and ignore the vastly larger number of cows, pigs and sheep butchered to satisfy demand elsewhere.

But critics of the practice say there is insufficient demand for the animals' meat, which in any case contains dangerous levels of mercury. They say the hunt is profitable only because of the high prices that live dolphins can fetch when sold to aquariums and dolphin shows.

On Sunday, about 30 people marched in Tokyo to protest the hunt, which they said sullies Japan's reputation abroad.

Activists detained

Also on Sunday, Sea Shepherd said 14 activists from the organization had been arrested in Denmark's Faeroe Islands while trying to halt a traditional dolphin hunt.

The activists were detained on Saturday on the island of Sandoy while attempting to save a pod of 33 pilot whales - members of the dolphin family - that were being driven toward shore to be slaughtered, said Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France.

"The 14 have been under arrest since Saturday, and three of our boats have also been seized," Essemlali told AFP.

Large numbers of pilot whales are slaughtered each year on the Faeroe Islands, an autonomous territory that lies between Iceland and northern Scotland.

The method involves the mammals being forced into a bay by flotillas of small boats before being hacked to death with hooks and knives.

Sea Shepherd, which has waged a sometimes violent campaign against whalers in defense of ocean wildlife, has denounced the hunt as brutal and archaic.

This year, the radical animal rights group brought celebrities to the North Atlantic islands to cast a spotlight on the practice.

After their arrest, the hunt went ahead and all 33 pilot whales were killed, according to Sea Shepherd.

Actor Charlie Sheen was one of the celebrities backing Sea Shepherd's action, and a boat he sponsored, B.S. Sheen, was seized on Saturday.

Sheen said in a statement he was proud his vessel had tried to stop the "atrocity".

"The Faroese whalers brutally slaughtered an entire pod of 33 pilot whales today-several generations taken from the sea - and Denmark is complicit in the killing," Sheen said in a statement.

(China Daily 09/02/2014 page10)