Animal Advocates Converge at Japanese Consulate to Demand End to Cruel Dolphin Cull

Activists Worldwide Gather to Call for End to Annual Slaughter

Los Angeles, Calif.—Members of In Defense of Animals (IDA) will hold a demonstration Tuesday as part of a day of international protest against Japan’s slaughter of over 23,000 dolphins each year. Activists will demand a permanent end to the drive fisheries and the preservation of dolphins and whales as natural treasures:

When: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Where: Japanese Consulate, 350 S. Grand Ave., Suite 1700

Every year in small towns along the Japanese coast, fishermen conduct drive fisheries to massacre tens of thousands of marine mammals in the most brutal ways imaginable. Pods of dolphins, porpoises, and small whales are driven into shallow bays, and then slaughtered using sharp spears and hooks. Some animals are left to slowly bleed to death literally turning the sea red while others drown, entangled in nets.

Most are butchered for meat that is sold in restaurants and supermarkets, while a choice few are pulled out of the water by ropes tied around their tails and sold to marine parks where they spend decades in loneliness and deprivation.

In August 2007 for the first time ever, Japanese government officials publicly condemned the consumption of dolphin meat on the grounds that it is contaminated with dangerously high levels of mercury.

“Japan’s annual slaughter of dolphins is cruel and barbaric,” says Melissa Gonzalez, IDA spokesperson. “We will continue to expose the senseless killings until Japan puts an end to this bloodbath.”

The annual Japan Dolphin Day is a global day of action when a broad range of organizations and activists band together to oppose the drive fisheries.

For more information or to view photos and video of the slaughter, please visit www.savejapandolphins.org and IDA’s Web site at www.idausa.org.