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This petition is closed
US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy: Please Halt the Taiji Dolphin Hunt!

US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy: Please Halt the Taiji Dolphin Hunt!

This petition is closed
50 Supporters

Haze S.
started this petition to
US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy
September 1st 2014, the Taiji dolphin drive has begun in Taiji, Japan.

Summary: Via Cove Guardians - Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
"In the small coastal town of Taiji, hundreds to thousands of dolphins and small whales are captured and killed each year during the annual dolphin drive hunt.

For a staggering six months of every year - September 1st until March 31st - a group of dolphin hunters herd wild dolphins from the ocean’s open waters into a hidden shallow bay, now infamously known around the world as The Cove."

So far this season, four pods of Risso's Dolphins have been slaughtered with two juveniles dumped at sea to fend for themselves.

A pod of pilot whales was also slaughtered, with those deemed unsuitable for captivity or slaughter being driven back to sea to fend for themselves. These are not added to seasonal quotas and will most likely die with no matriarch so should technically be included in the quota kill as well.
Source: http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2014/09/29/taiji-hunters-lose-abandon-pilot-whales-driven-out-of-cove-after-slaughter-of-their-family-1637

There will be many more.

The hunt is unsustainable:
"Unsustainable. This kind of removal of entire components of a gene pool is unsustainable, and is addressed under the laws of certain countries, if not Japan’s. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, 16 U.S.C. §1361- 1421 (MMPA), the term “population stock” or “stock” means “a group of marine mammals of the same species or smaller taxa in a common spatial arrangement, that interbreed when mature.” Under the MMPA, stocks are protected. The term “strategic stock” means “a marine mammal stock . . . for which the level of direct human-caused mortality exceeds the potential biological removal level.” The Taiji hunters exceed this mortality level in nearly every single encounter they have with dolphins during hunt season, because they are the proximate and direct cause of the kill and capture of significant portions of, if not entire, stocks of dolphins, even if some of the cause is less visible."
Source: http://coveblueforjiyu.com/2014/09/28/taiji-an-unsustainable-and-inhumane-dolphin-hunt/

The Taiji, Japan Government frequently cites 'culture and tradition' as a justification for the drive:
However, this "tradition" only began as an annual event in 1969 when captive marine parks began purchasing dolphins for significant
sums of money as the ones selected for captivity can fetch upwards of $250,000.00 USD.
Source: http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2014/01/29/taijis-dolphin-hunts-continue-1549
Source: http://www.seashepherd.org/cove-guardians/facts.html

"A Japanese ex-dolphin hunter has disputed government claims that the annual slaughter of dolphins in the Taiji Cove is traditional, centuries-old cultural practice, arguing that the hunting method was first used as recently as 1969."
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japanese-exdolphin-hunters-says-taiji-cove-slaughter-is-not-centuriesold-tradition-9202072.html

To be clear, there is NOTHING 'cultural or traditional' about captive selection or dolphins being cut up with boat propellers and being terrorized while they wait to die.
"The captive selection process is as violent as the killing in Taiji, and during the past four days, dolphins could be seen on our Cove Guardians live stream with blood on their faces as they desperately tried to escape the grasp of the killers and trainers. Dolphins repeatedly became entangled in the nets in their frantic efforts to escape or get to separated family members, the nets cutting through their flesh. The dolphins were further injured when run over by the skiffs being driven right over the pod. At one point, propeller blades of a skiff backed into a huddled grouping. The killers regularly use the outboard motors to intimidate and herd the sound-sensitive dolphins."
Source: http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2014/01/20/200-bottlenose-dolphins-held-a-fourth-night-in-cove-11-more-dolphins-taken-captive-yesterday-1547

Inhumane Killing Methods:
More recently, in an effort to reduce the amount of blood spilled into the water and into the sight of the world, the hunters use a killing technique known as “pithing."

"It has been documented that some dolphins and small whales have taken more than thirty minutes to die. The dolphins struggle in a pool of their own blood and the blood of their families, slowly suffocating and internally bleeding."
Source: http://www.seashepherd.org/cove-guardians/facts.html

A veterinary and behavioral analysis of dolphin killing methods currently used in the "drive hunt" in Taiji, Japan.
"This killing method does not conform to the recognized requirement for "immediate insensibility" and would not be tolerated or permitted in any regulated slaughterhouse process in the developed world."
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23544757

United States Government opposes the drive hunt:
Last season in January 2014, Ambassador Kennedy stated that she was:
"Deeply concerned by the inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing. USG opposes drive hunt fisheries."
Source: https://twitter.com/CarolineKennedy/status/424405245217611776

In response to a question by NPR's Elizabeth Shogren referring to Ambassador Kennedy's tweet, The US State Department indicated that there would be an official inquiry into the status of the level of communication with Japan on this issue.

"QUESTION: And was there any official correspondence with the Japanese officials on this issue?

MS. HARF: I can check and see. We have discussed our concerns directly with Japan. I can check and see what level we’ve discussed those concerns at."
Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/01/220499.htm

We are hereby requesting Ambassador Caroline Kennedy personally go to Taiji and bear witness to the cruel killing methods, the selective captivity, the animals terrorized and starved while they await slaughter and to use any and all resources at her disposal to halt the Taiji hunt immediately.

We are also formally requesting an update to the status of the inquiry cited in the State Department Press briefing dated January 21, 2014

The Taiji government MUST NOT be allowed to justify the hunt under the falsity of culture and tradition.

Silence for the US government is UNACCEPTABLE. We can not and MUST not be indifferent to the suffering of these highly evolved, complex animals. It is time for action.
Posted (Updated )