Dolphin sent to S. Korea from Japan's Taiji dies in captivity

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Dolphin sent to S. Korea from Japan's Taiji dies in captivity

Tuesday, 15 December 2009 10:39

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One of four wild-caught dolphins recently sent to South Korea from Taiji, a Japanese town whose lethal roundups of dolphins have sparked controversy, died Monday, according to local officials.

The bottlenose dolphin died at the Jangsaengpo Whale Museum, which opened in 2005 in the east coast city of Ulsan, a former whaling port. According to local officials, the dolphin stopped eating a week ago.

It was among four that were sent in October from Taiji, a town in Japan's Wakayama Prefecture that annually rounds up thousands of dolphins between September and March, herding them from offshore into a shallow cove where most are slaughtered.

Fishermen in Taiji have tried to hide the slaughter from the eyes of outsiders, but gruesome video footage has surfaced on the Internet and in the recent film "The Cove," fueling the town's notoriety among conservationists and animal rights activists.

Locals reject arguments that dolphins are special and say killing and eating the marine mammals is a time-honored tradition.

Those dolphins that are spared slaughter are exported to aquariums and dolphinariums around the world to be used in public performances and swim-with-the-dolphins programs.

Critics say that catching and confining wild-caught dolphins in barren tanks is hugely stressful and inherently cruel to the intelligent and social creatures, which are trained to perform tricks using hunger as an inducement... Full Article breitbart