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Trade sanctions announced after Mexico fails to protect near extinct porpoise

The international body behind the treaty that protects endangered plants and animals from the threats...

WDC exposes failure of Government scheme to protect whales and dolphins from net deaths

Following our investigations, we have revealed that a UK Government scheme to protect whales and...

First cases of bird flu in dolphins discovered in the UK

The UK Government has announced that two dolphins and a harbour porpoise have died from...
Kiska the orca

Kiska the ‘world’s loneliest whale’ dies at Canadian theme park

Kiska, dubbed the loneliest whale in the world, has died at Marineland, a zoo and...

World zoo organisation accused of links to brutal Japanese dolphin hunts

The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), the organisation behind the world’s leading zoos, is being taken to court in Switzerland by conservation groups over claims that it is directly linked to the infamous dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan.

Waza stands accused of helping secure captured dolphins for one of its members, despite publicly condemning the hunts. The organisation is alleged to have allowed a deal between the fishermen in Taiji (who herd and slaughter the dolphins) and the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums (JAZA), which is an associate WAZA member.

During the hunts, dolphins are herded and forced into coves by boats where they then cruelly slaughtered with knives.  Those not killed are specially selected for capture and are sold to buyers from aquariums where they then live out the rest of their lives performing ticks for so-called ‘entertainment’. WDC has previously exposed the brutal methods used to kill the dolphins, which failed to meet the most basic of slaughterhouse regulations.

WAZA’s own code of ethics describes the hunts as “inherently cruel”. Despite claims that the dolphin hunts were part of a Japanese cultural tradition stretching back hundreds of years, records in Taiji itself show that the first large-scale hunts started in 1969 and are mainly driven by the financial rewards gained from capturing dolphins for theme parks rather than the small amount of money that can be earned from selling the meat.