Do you like marine parks, public aquariums and dolphinariums? To get a dolphin to the marine park, it is first forcibly captured in the wild. It is then trained and sent to a designated location to become a money-making attraction. Dolphins in dolphinariums may look happy, but they suffer and many die. A dolphin is caught in the wild and then placed in a pen. In the opening photo, you can see one of the many pens in which a caught dolphin is placed.
Dolphins confined in Moriura Bay
One of the largest places for capturing and imprisoning dolphins is Japan’s Moriura Bay in Taiji. It is important for people to know that even today these atrocities are taking place and these creatures are being captured from the wild in a cruel way. Dolphinproject.com, which cooperates with the Life Investigation Agency (LIA), reported on the imprisoned dolphins. The LIA is led by campaign director Ren Yabuki and his team of more than 46 activists from across Japan. They carefully documented how the dolphins were treated.
Shocking number of dolphins caught
The number of captive dolphins is shocking, as of March 2022, 269 dolphins were held, which include 9 species:
- bottlenose dolphins – 180
- Risso’s dolphins – 35
- short-finned pilot whales – 11
- striped dolphins – 8
- Pacific white-sided dolphins – 19
- melon-headed whales – 3
- rough-toothed dolphins – 3
- spotted dolphins – 9
- false killer whales – 1
According to the LIA, the actual number of dolphins caught is even higher, many of them likely to have died. The number of dolphins in Taiji, Japan is constantly increasing. Everything is done only for profit.
The portal doplpninproject.com claims: “A few years ago, Taiji decided they wanted to create an aquatic theme park in Moriura Bay, where visitors could paddle board, canoe, swim with, and feed captive dolphins. One of their goals is to breed and crossbreed between species, creating unusual and rare mammals such as albino or leucistic dolphins, or hybrid species, for maximum profitability.”
Explains Ren, “Although Taiji is the world’s largest center for live dolphin trades, there is no doubt that the industry will continue to dwindle as the capture, sale and breeding of wild animals becomes increasingly prohibited around the world. The percentage of days dolphin hunters failed to catch any dolphins was 64% in the 2020/21 season, but in this season (2021/22) it was 69%, an increase of 4%. The Dolphin Project compiles the number of dolphins caught each year, and the number is decreasing year by year, possibly a result of decades-long hunting practices of killing off entire pods. The town needs to shift away from their cruel practices as soon as possible.”
Source: https://www.dolphinproject.com/blog/taijis-massive-captive-dolphin-inventory/
Credit: Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, LIA
