Skip to content
All news
  • All news
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Corporates
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Scottish Dolphin Centre
  • Stop whaling
  • Stranding
  • Whale watching

New government marine wildlife code to help reduce dolphin disturbance

The launch today by UK Government of new guidance on how to act responsibly around...

UK government to extend ivory ban to stop the sale of orca teeth

Following the UK ban on the import, export and dealing of elephant ivory in 2022,...

Dead whale beauty products to be sold in Japanese vending machine stores

Antarctic minke whale alongside Japanese whaling ship. Photo © Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert Japanese whale hunting company,...

Arrests made following illegal whale meat smuggling from Japan to South Korea

Customs authorities in Busan, South Korea, have arrested six people for allegedly smuggling at least...

WDC joins worldwide dolphin slaughter protest

Staff from WDC’s offices around the world will join supporters and other concerned members of the public in a number of international demonstrations on the 1st September against Japan’s infamous dolphin slaughter. Thousands of people are expected to join in the ‘Japan Dolphin Day’ protests outside Japanese embassies in cities such as Buenos Aires, London, and Phoenix, and call for an end to this ongoing slaughter.

Japan’s annual drive hunts occur from September to April primarily in the coastal town of Taiji. The cruelty endured by dolphins and small whales caught in drive hunts is immense. Fishermen herd and drive the animals toward shore where they are trapped in nets and brutally killed. Dolphins are also captured alive and sold to aquaria and marine parks worldwide.

Last year, over 850 dolphins were killed in the drive hunts. An additional 150 individuals were selected alive from the hunts for captivity.  The quota for the number of dolphins that can be killed in the Taiji drive hunt for the 2014-15 season is 1, 938. 

WDC has been active in confronting the hunts in Japan on a number of levels, including raising awareness of the hunts, documenting and monitoring the hunts in Taiji, engaging with US and Japanese authorities, supporting Japanese activists and organizations, and taking part in peaceful protests.

If you can’t join one of the protests, you can still help;

Please contact Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, DC to politely express your opposition to these brutal drive hunts.
E-mail: [email protected]    

You can also send a message to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at:
http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment.html