Japan fishery town presses on with annual dolphin hunt

A Japanese coastal town has gone ahead with its controversial dolphin hunt, shrugging off protests from animal-rights activists, local officials said yesterday.

Fishermen in Taiji town caught about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales on Wednesday, in their first catch since the fishery season started on September 1, Wakayama prefectural official Yasushi Shimamura said.

They plan to sell about 50 dolphins to aquariums nationwide and release the remainder back into the sea, while the whale meat will be sold for human consumption, an official at a local fishermen's cooperative said. The town's annual dolphin hunt drew international attention earlier this year after the release of award-winning eco-documentary The Cove, in which a team of film-makers covertly covered the event in graphic detail.

After the film's release, the Australian coastal city of Broome ended its sister-city relationship with Taiji to protest the hunt. Town officials said they would not slaughter any of the dolphins caught on Wednesday, but denied it was due to international pressure.