The Final Horrific Day for the 250+ Bottlenose Dolphins: Captive Selection Ends and 40 Dolphins are Slaughtered, The Rest are Driven Back to Sea.

 

40 bottlenose dolphins were callously murdered on their 4th day trapped in the cove.
One dolphin drowned within nets while trying to escape.
A total body count of 41 dolphins slaughtered  today
from the original 250+ driven into The Cove. 
50 dolphins were selected for captivity days 1, 2 & 3.

The Taiji killers started working early on the 200+ dolphin's 4th day trapped in The Cove.  The killers then began their terrible slaughtering of the dolphins.  The dedicated Sea Shepard Cove Guardians started their Livestream broadcast to document and expose that final, horrific day.

Killers enter the cove just after sunrise
Hearing the killer's skiffs alarms and agitates the bottlenose dolphins.

The killers started this ugly day by taking the dolphins netted closest to the killing shore of The Cove. Those dolphins were manhandled into the small nets for their second trip underneath the tarps, this time the trip will be their final, fatal visit.  When they leave, they will be tied in groups by their flukes and towed by killers in skiffs, out of The Cove, and eventually to the Taiji butcher house.  Once there, their lifeless bodies will be cut up and later sold as meat.  Dolphins are priceless to most people who delight in their playfulness and natural friendliness towards humans, for the Taiji killers, a dead dolphin is worth about $500 for it's meat.



Killers push the dolphins into the killing cove

The Bottlenose pod was so exhausted that they did not put up much of a fight
while being herded toward the tarps.

These dolphins have experienced "hell on earth" at the hands of the Taiji killers.  This is the dolphin's 4th day of being trapped in The Cove, plus the day being driven to The Cove, so 5 days of horror. They have been starved by the killers since their last meal and hydration (which comes form eating fresh fish) was some unknown time before the killers found them swimming past Japan 5 days ago.  



A remaining pod of approximately 130-140 dolphins
were left to witness their family slaughtered.



One of the poor dolphins was seen trying to escape death.  He swam at the net becoming trapped in it after he tore the net from trying so HARD to get away and escape.  Sadly, the hole was not large enough for the dolphin to break completely through and make his escape.  A skiff of killers saw the dolphin, and went to remove him from the net so they could kill him later.  After removing the dolphin, the killers ran him over with their skiff as they moved away.

One dolphin's last attempt to escape death breaking through the net,
 but too weak to make it through, the killers free it and run it over with skiff

Exhausted bottlenose dolphin looks his killer in the eye.
Bottlenose dolphins are naturally friendly to mankind,
why are a few "men" so unkind to the dolphins?

The Cove was now starting to turn a light red as the blood of the first slaughtered dolphins bled into the water.  The killers use wood dowels to plug the wounds made from stabbing the dolphins in their blowholes.  The killers do this to try and prevent the dolphin's blood from staining The Cove water - a PR move that fails.  The sheer quality of blood that is shed, even after plugging the wounds, still turns The Cove red.....

The Red Cove
The slaughtered bottlenose dolphin's blood flows out from under
the tarps where the dolphins are killed  

Dolphins are seen swimming in the blood of their relatives

The killers callously run the dolphins over with their skiffs, they make no effort to avoid the trapped dolphins as they go about their terrible work.  The dolphins are often injured by the skiff's propeller. 



The killers run their skiff over the dolphins
The killers make no effort to avoid injuring the dolphins with the skiffs propellers

The SSCG's camera found a weaken dolphin, barely able to keep it's head above water, some killers in a skiff spotted it too and moved closer.  A diver caught the starved dolphin, took a rope that is fixed to the skiff and put the loop of the rope around the poor dolphin's flukes.  The killers in the skiff then dragged the dolphin backwards by it's tail, which forces the dolphin's head underwater where  it cannot breath.  The killer dragged the dolphin tail first, under the tarps where it was slaughtered. 

Dolphins were too weak to fight back.

The killers kill the dolphins by taking the rope attached to the skiff, that has dragged the dolphin tail first, underneath the tarps which hides the killer's activity.  A waiting killer on the shore takes the rope from the killer in the skiff, and fastens the rope's other looped end to a post in the sand.  That anchors the dolphin so it cannot get away from the killer while he murders the dolphin. The killer takes a short spear called a "pith" ("verb, used with an object, meaning to destroy the spinal cord or brain of" ) and stabs the victim dolphin through his blowhole repeatedly to try and sever the dolphin's spinal cord.


Pith with wood dowel or plug

It must be terribly painful to be tied up and stabbed over and over again into the sensitive blowhole and not be able to get away.  When the killer decides he has severed the dolphin's spine, he takes a wood dowel and plugs the blowhole (now a wound) to keep the dolphin from bleeding too much and staining The Cove red.  The dolphin perhaps with his spine severed, perhaps not, bleeds out anyway, and slowly suffocates from having his blowhole plugged.  He trashes with his tail tied to the shore, as he suffers and suffocates, his spasms are terrible as he slowly dies.  The Japanese government has stated that the slaughter is humane and bloodless, does this sound humane?  Watch the video below and see for yourself.



Warning the video above shows how the dolphins are killed in Taiji.  This was taken in January 2011 of the slaughter of what appears to be a small pod of white sided dolphins - the slaughter is ugly.  Because these dolphins are smaller, their bodies are piled into the boat rather than towed to the butcher house as larger bottlenose dolphins are.  Please be sure to read the text at the films end.  This video was made by AtlanticBlue.de  Thank you for your courage to witness this.

A dead dolphin is seen through the tarps.  The Cove water is Red

Two dead dolphins are seen through the tarps. 
Between 40 and 50 bottlenose dolphins were slaughtered
A terrible death being stabbed to death after 5 days of starvation and trauma

While the killers were slaughtering dolphins, they found a "pretty" dolphin that they missed!  They forced her into a sling and took her out of The Cove and to the Taiji Harbor pens for a life as a show dolphin.  That poor dolphin swam in the blood of her murdered family and friends and heard them thrash and call out as they were slaughtered.  A trained show dolphin is worth more than $100,000, as meat, only $500 and nothing if released into the ocean and freedom.  From the killers point of view it makes more sense to keep dolphins for captivity ($$$$$) or meat ($): GREED trumps humanity.

After a little over 2 hours, a skiff leaves towing the bodies of the dead or almost dead dolphins, past their still living family and friends.   The skiff with killers, have draped the dolphin's dead bodies with tarps to try and hide the bodies from the witnesses at Taiji, the SSCG's cameras and the watching world.   But sometimes the wind blows (a divine wind?) and exposes the bodies which are seen by the witnesses and cameras.  Why do the killers try and hide their "Tradition" are they not proud of what they have done?  They take great pains to cover up what they do.  Remember, they also have tarps to cover up the examinations for captive selection and the murders they commit .  Why?



Killers hiding their culture and tradition covering the bodies of the
dead bottlenose dolphins as a skiff leaves The Cove
to take the slaughtered dolphins to the butcher house
to be cut up for meat and sold.



Then, a second skiff towing dead dolphins leaves The Cove.  The SSCG's Livestream broadcast showed The Cove's now very red water as the skiff moved away and towards the butcher house.

Banger boat transfers the bodies of the slaughtered bottlenose dolphins
to be received at the butcher house.  There the dolphins will be cut up as meat

Just past the 3rd hour, a 3rd skiff left towing more dead bottlenose dolphins to the butcher house to be cut up and sold as meat to Japanese people.  Why would the Japanese eat friendly, beautiful dolphins?  Especially when dolphin's meat has high levels of mercury because it is a top predator.  Their bodies absorb mercury from all fish they eat, and over time it collects in the tissues, so it does not make good sense to eat food that is toxic.

The Cove killing activity slowed down after the 3rd hour as the killers loaded up skiffs, numbers 4 and 5.  It was not known how many bodies each of the 5 skiffs were towing.  Afterwards it was reported that about 40 bottlenose dolphins had been slaughtered.

During the killer's break, the SSCG monitors talked about how especially hard this has been on these dolphins today.  The dolphins slaughtered today fought as best they could after being starved and traumatized the past 4 or 5 days.  But being so exhausted they were not able to fight as hard as other bottlenose pods that had been slaughtered in the past.  Just an awful thought for all these dolphins have been through.... we MUST help stop this terrible industry. The Japanese government allows the Taiji killers to take about 2 thousand dolphins and small whales (pilot whales which are actually members of the dolphin family) every year from September to March.  These so called "traditional" dolphin drives have only been happening for the past 40 years or so - not a long tradition.  It would have been too expensive in fuel to look for dolphins at sea and drive them back to shore, it is only because of the market for selling dolphins at very high prices for the huge entertainment industy that the drives have happened like this.  These drives to hunt dolphins have paid for lots of expensive equipment for the killers.

Cove Guardians bear witness to 40 dolphins being slaughtered.

The SSCG's showed via their Livestream, how the dolphins are transferred from the skiffs to the bigger banger boats which take the bodies to the butcher house.  The banger boats tow the dolphins dead bodies on the side of the boat that faces away from shore most of the time, to keep witnesses from seeing the bodies.  They also have a metal structure attached to one side of the boat on which to drape the blue tarps to cover the bodies.  The killers really don't want anyone to see what they are doing - such a proud tradition!

A remaining pod was later driven back out to sea

The remaining bottlenose dolphins still alive after all the horror they have been through, and just witnessed, were huddled together in the netted off area.  These poor dolphins were still waiting their fate and would become agitated every time they heard the skiffs coming closer to them, as the killers towed the bodies of their pod mates past them.  The skiff's motors herald the possibility of more torture.

Hungry, frightened and tired; these dolphins had to hear their families be slaughtered
 and had to swim in their blood. Nothing humane about this

After the killers enjoyed their lunch they finally released the remaining bottlenose dolphins who managed to survive the grueling 5 days.  Saying that the killers released the few surviving members of the original 250+ dolphins is a nice way of saying that the killers were in fact, driving them hard back out to sea with several banger boats chasing them.  The exhausted, starving, perhaps injured dolphins swam as fast as they could to escape the terrible killers and cove.  Even so, a few distraught dolphins were seen trying to swim back to The Cove to look for their missing family members, the ones that were taken from them either for dolphin shows or slaughtered.

Pod being driven back out to sea after 5 days of starvation and trauma,
some may not survive the killers treatment.  But the important thing to the
killers, is that those deaths won't be counted against their quota!



The killers took their time letting the survivors go.  It seemed like the killers wanted the dolphins to suffer for a little more time while the killers took their lunch break - no going hungry for the killers.  They seemed to deliberately do that to further torture the starving, traumatized dolphins - and show contempt for everyone watching their cruel industry. 

A juvenile Bottlenose barely surfaces during drive out.
The chances of survival are slim after 5 tormenting days in the cove.

Some or many of the released bottlenose dolphins may not survive the 5 days of starvation, dehydration, injuries and the traumas of being trapped, manhandled during the selection process and having their family members stolen from them.  Some are babies and juveniles too small to be worth it to slaughter (be counted against the killers quota) or too young for captivity and will starve without their mothers to provide milk and nurture.  Angel Shoujo was the first to be taken from her mother's side, where is her mother?  Did she pass captive selection? Was she slaughtered?  Was she one of the dolphins released?  Was she one of the dolphins who lingered after being chased back out to sea, looking for their missing loved ones?

The albino calf, later named Angel Shoujo, swimming with  her mother in The Cove
 from Jan 17th 2014 Dolphin Hunt Drive in Taiji
The next day Angel Shoujo was the first dolphin taken during the captive selection,
she was taken from her mother who was not able to protect her from the killers.

The drive out is just as traumatic as the drive in.
Some dolphins linger to find family.

Tomorrow it all begins again.  
The killers will go out in their banger boats to hunt for more dolphins to drive into The Cove.  The season still has more than two more months left and more money for the killers to make.  The killers are allowed to practice their horrible drive hunts from September to March.  And they will every year until enough people take action to help all dolphins and whales.

Update 1-25-14:  SSCG report "2-3 captive Bottlenose dolphins found floating dead in Taiji harbor pens."  These dolphins were captives from the 3rd day of captive selection and did not survive their first days of captivity after the stress of the 5 days of the 250+ bottlenose dolphin drive.  Their bodies were taken to the butcher house to be sold as meat.  More photos.

"2-3 captive Bottlenose dolphins found floating dead in Taiji harbor pens."

Please help, spread the word to your family and friends, sign petitions, express your views on media sites whenever there is a story and most of all Do Not Buy a Ticket to Any Places that have Captive Cetaceans or Swim with Dolphin Programs.  When you take away the Taiji' killer's market, you take away the money they get from selling dolphins and other cetaceans.  Please be a voice for dolphins, they need our help.

~ Kindness for Animals


See and find out more about this incredibly sad day:

• Sea Shepard Cove Guardian PHOTOS of this last awful day - as hard as it is to read and see the photos and video, the SSCG have been witnessing every day in person as it happens.  I don't think I can fully imagine how hard that must be.  Thank you Brave and Dedicated Cove Guardians.
• Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project  PHOTOS of the awful day for the remaining members of the original 250+ bottlenose dolphin family.  Thank you Brave and Dedicated Dolphin Project Team.

Please read more about this tragic story of the 250+ dolphin pod with a baby albino dolphin that happened over 5 days:
Day 1 - Dolphin Drive Captures 250+ Dolphins Plus Baby Albino

Day 2 - First Day of Captive Selection:

Day 2 - Baby Albino Dolphin, Angel, is Taken First into Captivity

Day 3 - Horrific Second Day of Captive Selection

Day 4 - 3rd Day of Captive Selection
Day 5 - This is this post: The slaughter of 40 of the remaining dolphins who have survived so far and release and drive back out to sea of the exhausted, injured, traumatized and starving dolphins.

Very good report from Reuters about this terrible January day in Taiji from Reuters Videos