Dry Season
The latest news from Taiji
By Hans Peter Roth – WDCS rep on the ground.
The most beautiful days are those, when the dolphin hunter are not going out at all. Here the boats are driving the dolphins with the help of an artificial wall of noise in front of them. By banging on metal rods, the hunter scare the dolphins under water and drive the animals where they want them to go, it can be heard miles away.
From time to time, they come back from an unsuccessful hunt when the dolphins are able to escape their agitators. Today was such a day. Apparently, twelve boats followed a pod of dolphins but the dolphins were able to divide and finally escaped into the ocean. What a bother for the tormentors who had to return without any prey after five plus hours of searching and hunting. What a waste of working time and fuel!
This barbaric outdated hunt is also not profitable from an economic point of view. The demand for captive dolphins alone makes it possible that the dolphin slaughter still happens. Days like today make it possible for me to catch a little breath and to cope with my collected impressions. But days like this are unfortunately seldom during this ongoing period of fine weather. Here's the boats returning to harbor empty handed.
A kind of dry season dominates the region. Since my arrival three weeks ago I haven’t seen a single drop of rain. Everything is bone-dry. That makes the observation on the one hand easy, but unfortunately on the other hand it also creates perfect hunting conditions for the dolphin tormentors. Nearly every day the ocean is calm like a lake, yet there is a possibility of waves from a land breeze which would make the search and hunt more difficulty.
you can see the area where the dolphins are in the lower left hand corner.
Hans Peter Roth
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