My new book has a dolphin character, Mirrhi, a young female who is rescued and nursed back to health after being struck by a boat. Writing Mirrhi and researching dolphin behaviour has made me sadder than ever at the tragedy unfolding right now in Japan’s infamous Taiji Cove. This annual butchery of thousands of migrating dolphins and porpoises was brought to international attention by a documentary film The Cove. It was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010, but the slaughter continues.

Yesterday five separate pods of dolphins were driven into Taiji Cove – two hundred and fifty dolphins, including a white albino calf. Cove monitors are calling this poor little dolphin “Angel.” So what will happen to Angel?  She has been taken from her mother to the Taiji Whale Museum.  This is particularly foolish as the calf’s likelihood of survival in captivity would be enhanced if the mother was with her. The Museum is owned by the Taiji town government and brokers dolphins all over the world, including providing dolphins for the one hundred or so dolphinariums in Japan. Angel’s mother and hundreds like her will be slaughtered and sold for meat, while Angel sits in a tank on display.

Dolphin hunting in Taiji must be stopped, and the global marine park industry should be in the forefront of these efforts. Instead, dolphinariums subsidise the hunts by paying top dollar for captive dolphins like Angel, while her mother is butchered.  They should be ashamed of themselves. Can this exploitation & brutality really be allowed to happen in the HOST NATION of the 2020 Olympic Games?

What can we do?

Contact the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee via their Twitter or Facebook accounts to let them know that this is not acceptable.
Join the TWEETSTORM, instructions & pre-written tweets are ready for you to click on, to get this story into the mainstream media.
Visit The Dolphin Project or Sea Shepherd’s Cove Guardians for more information. Many dolphin lives are depending on our help.