Dolphin drive hunting

Dolphin drive hunting, also called dolphin drive fishing, is a method of hunting dolphins and occasionally other small cetaceans by driving them together with boats and then usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the open sea or ocean with boats and nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in several places around the world. The largest number of dolphins are hunted using this method in Japan, however the practice also occurs on the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands and Peru. Dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat; some are captured and end up in dolphinariums.

Despite the controversial nature of the hunt resulting in international criticism and the possible health risk that the often polluted meat causes, many thousands of dolphins are caught in drive hunts each year.

Drive hunting in Japan
In Japan, Striped, Spotted, Risso's and Bottlenose dolphins are most commonly hunted, but several other species such as the False Killer Whale are also occasionally caught. A small number of Orcas have been caught in the past. Striped Dolphins are now considered endangered in the area, but they continue to be hunted in smaller numbers. In 2004, according to the Japanese government, 554 Striped Dolphins, 475 Bottlenose Dolphins, 437 Risso's Dolphins and 63 Southern Short Finned Pilot Whales were captured in drive hunts, for a total of 1,537 animals. The catch quota set by the Japanese government allows for around 3,000 dolphins to be captured annually. These numbers do not include dolphins and other small whale species killed using various other methods however, such as offshore harpoon hunts, in which mainly porpoises are killed.

The Japanese town of Taiji on the Kii peninsula is best known for its drive hunts and as of now the only town left in Japan where drive hunting still takes place on a large scale. Also infamous is the town of Futo, however no drive hunts have had place there in the last few years, the last known hunt having taken place there in 2004. Taiji on the other hand is stepping up it's dolphin slaughter programs, having recently approved an estimated ¥330 Million for the construction of a massive cetacean slaughterhouse in Taiji in an effort to "popularize the consumption of dolphins in the country,". This comes after another highly debated issue concerning the fact that Taiji is hoping to expand its school lunch programs to include dolphin and whale meat, despite recent discoveries of mercury and methylmercury over 10x the limit imposed by the Japanese Health Ministry.

Method
In Japan, the hunting is done by a select group of fishermen. When a pod of dolphins has been spotted, they're driven into a bay by the fishermen while banging on metal rods in the water to scare and confuse the dolphins. When the dolphins are in the bay, it is quickly closed off with nets so the dolphins cannot escape. The dolphins are usually not caught and killed immediately, but instead left to calm down over night. The following day, the dolphins are caught one by one and killed. The killing of the animals used to be done by slitting their throats which resulted in a long and painful death for the dolphin, but the Japanese government banned this method and now dolphins may officially only be killed by driving a metal pin into the neck of the dolphin, which causes them to die within seconds. This ban has not seemed to have been enforced though, as eyewitness reports of similar throat-slitting and evisceration style killings were reported as late as October and November of 2006. No word yet on the 2007 drive hunts.

Entertainment industry
Occasionally, some of the captured dolphins are left alive and taken to mainly, but not exclusively, Japanese dolphinariums. In the past, dolphins have also been exported to the United States for several parks including the well known SeaWorld parks, however this stopped after the US National Marine Fisheries Service refused a permit for Marine World Africa USA to import four False Killer Whales caught in a Japanese drive hunt. Countries still importing dolphins from the Japanese drive hunts in recent years are China and Taiwan. On multiple occasions members of the International Marine Animal Trainers Association (IMATA) have also been observed at the drive hunts in Japan.

Animal welfare organisations such as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society believe dolphinariums are keeping the dolphin hunts economically viable, as dolphins sold for entertainment can be sold at much higher prices than those sold for their meat. As an example, five Orcas captured in Taiji in 1996 were sold for a total amount of around one million US dollars (775.000 euros) to local dolphinariums. All animals have since died. Ocean World Adventure Park in the Dominican Republic paid some 580,000 US dollars (450.000 euros) for twelve Bottlenose Dolphins.

Human health concerns
The meat and blubber of the dolphins caught has been found to have high levels of mercury, cadmium, the pesticide DDT and organic contaminants like PCBs. The levels are high enough to pose a health risk for those frequently eating the meat and researchers warn that children and pregnant women shouldn't eat the meat at all. Because of the health concerns, the price of dolphin meat has decreased significantly. However, Taiji's bid to expand their school lunch programs to include dolphin and whale meat has brought about much controversy. Currently, an estimated 150kg of dolphin meat was served in Taiji school lunches as of 2006. According to recent findings, the levels of mercury and methylmercury taken from samples of dolphin and whale meat sold at supermarkets most likely to be providing to the school's lunch programs was 10x that advised by the Japanese Health Ministry. In fact, the levels are so high they even surpassed those of seafood found to have caused Minamata disease in the Minamata mercury pollution disaster of the 1950's, in which over 1,700 people died of the effects of mercury poisoning. This recent escalation in cetacean meat use also coincides with plans to expand Taiji's killing and processing capacity by approving an estimated ¥330 million to fund the construction of a new cetacean slaughterhouse in Taiji, despite the recent findings suggesting that dolphin meat is harmful to anyone who consumes it, especially young children. The mercury levels were so high that the Okuwa Co. supermarket chain in Japan permanently removed dolphin meat from it's shelves citing the enormous risks it poses to consumers.

Solomon Islands
On a smaller scale, drive hunting for dolphins also still takes place on the Solomon Islands, more specifically on the island of Malaita. Though they also eat the meat of the animals, a second reason for hunting the dolphins here is for their teeth, which are used in jewelry and seen as a form of currency on the island. The dolphins are hunted in a similar fashion as in Japan, using stones instead of metal rods to produce sounds to scare and confuse the dolphins. Various species are hunted, such as Spotted and Spinner dolphins. As in Japan, some dolphins from the Solomon Islands have also been sold to the entertainment industry. Though the export of dolphins has been banned in 2005, the export of dolphins may be resumed again soon.

Faroe Islands
On the Faroe Islands mainly Pilot Whales are killed by drive hunts for their meat. Though officially this is the only species hunted, several other species are also killed on occasion such as the Northern bottlenose whale and Atlantic White-sided Dolphin. The hunt is known by the locals as the Grindadráp. There are no fixed hunting seasons, as soon as a pod close enough to land is spotted fishermen set out to begin the hunt. The dolphins here are driven onto the beach with boats, blocking off the way to the ocean with nets. When on the beach, most of them get stuck. Those dolphins that have remained too far in the water are dragged onto the beach by driving a steel hook into the blubber of the animal, though these days in response to allegations of animal cruelty they're more often dragged by putting a hook in their blowhole. When on land, they are killed by cutting down to the major arteries and spinal cord at the neck. The time it takes for a dolphin to die varies from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the cut. When the fishermen fail to beach the animals all together, they are let free again.

The pilot whale stock in the eastern and central North Atlantic is estimated to number 778,000. About a thousand pilot whales are killed this way each year on the Faroe Islands together with usually a few dozen up to a few hundred animals belonging to other small cetaceans species, but numbers vary greatly per year. The amount of pilot whales killed each year is not believed to be a threat to the sustainability of the population, but the brutality of the hunt has resulted in international criticism especially from animal welfare organisations.

As in Japan, here too the meat is contaminated with mercury and cadmium, causing a health risk for those frequently eating it. Again, especially children and pregnant women are at risk.

Peru
Though it is forbidden under Peruvian law to hunt dolphins or eat their meat, a large number of dolphins are still killed illegally by fishermen each year. Although exact numbers are not known, the Peruvian organisation Mundo Azul (Blue World) estimates that at least a thousand are killed annually. To catch the dolphins, they are driven together with boats and encircled with nets, then harpooned, dragged on to the boat, and clubbed to death if still alive. Various species are hunted, such as the Bottlenose and Dusky Dolphin.

Taiwan
On the Penghu Islands in Taiwan, drive fishing of Bottlenose Dolphins was practiced until 1990, when the practise was outlawed by the government. Mainly Indian Ocean Bottlenose Dolphins but also common Bottlenose Dolphins were captured in these hunts.

Hawaii
In ancient Hawaii, fishermen used to hunt dolphins for their meat by driving them onto the beach and killing them. In their ancient legal system, dolphin meat was considered to be kapu (forbidden) for women together with several other kinds of food. Today, dolphin drive hunting no longer takes place on Hawaii.

Criticism
Though drive hunts happen in various places around the world, it is mainly the Japanese drive hunts that receive considerable international criticism. The hunts are considered very brutal by many, especially because dolphins are popular in human culture and known to be highly intelligent mammals. Not all of the Japanese fishermen are convinced of this and do not believe dolphins deserve to be treated any different from fish. Since the hunt dates back several centuries, it has become a tradition and thus the criticism is perceived by some as an attack on their culture. Since much of the criticism is the result of photos and videos taken during the hunt and slaughter, it is now common for the final capture and slaughter to take place on site inside a tent or under a plastic cover, out of sight from the public. In recent years, the Taiji city council has also banned certain areas overlooking the killing grounds from being trespassed as a means of preventing more footage from leaking out. Anyone daring enough to attempt capturing the slaughter is often subjected to harassment, death threats, and even physical violence from the locals, all the while the police claim to be "neutral" to prevent such attacks. This need for secrecy has been mostly attributed to Japan fearing that such images being spread throughout the media will give them a bad name, and subsequently lower their economic gains as a result of their tarnished image. The most notorious and widespread footage is probably that of the drive and subsequent capture and slaughter process taken in Futo in October of 1999 (a still of which can be seen on the right), shot by the Japanese animal welfare organisation Elsa Nature Conservancy. Part of this footage was, amongst others, shown on CNN. In recent years, the video has also become widespread on the internet and was featured in the animal welfare documentary Earthlings.

Well known are also the images from Iki Island taken in 1979 of a Japanese fisherman stabbing dolphins with a spear in shallow waters.

The hunts on the Faroe Islands also attract some international criticism but much less when compared to Japan, while the hunts in Peru mainly seem to get the interest of only local animal welfare organisations. The hunts on the Solomon Islands seem to draw little to no criticism.

Some of the animal welfare organisations campaigning against the drive hunts are Sea Shepherd, One Voice, BlueVoice, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Japan has pressured the United States to declare Sea Shepherd a terrorist organization, while Sea Shepherd claims that Japan violates their treaty obligations to the International Whaling Commission by killing Pilot Whales.

Videos
3D animation of how a drive works, including links to two videos

Video at Glumbert.com - well known footage of a drive hunt in Futo in 1999

Video report produced by BlueVoice.org