A Lost Taiji blog - bottle-nose dolphins are the victims.

Here's a lost blog from Hans Peter Roth we thought needed to get posted.

Once more bottle-nosed dolphins are the victims

(09.02.2011)

"They started before seven o'clock" - This was told to us by the friendly man from the coast guard who has already watched us at the marina of Katsuura. He's speaking of the dolphin hunters. It has been raining the whole night for the first time since I've arrived in Japan for more than four weeks ago...  Just in time as we're going to sail the sun begins to shine.  But today our mood is by far not as good as yesterday.

The sea is astonishingly rough today. But even though they're hunting.  Obviously, they've made a find. Now, all we can do is hoping that the pod is able to escape.  The boat from the coast guard is heading directly towards us, which is unusual. And shortly after, a man, standing on the bow of the armed, fast and maneuverable blue vessel, is giving unmistakable signs.

"Stop!" Michae Yoshiko is shouting. He is sitting at the steering wheel. "Stop!" We bring the ship about and the coast guard approaches us. One man fetches a megaphone. "Massive waves, wind", they shout from the megaphone. "Please drive carefully and not too far off". They are stopped us to tell us that, I ask? "More likely to see if we're going to comply with their orders" Michael answers. Again, a shout from the megaphone: "And please do not approach the dolphin hunters!" Gotcha. We gather speed again. Michael complies with the orders. We keep distance. It's eerie to watch the hunters and their doings.

It doesn't look good for the dolphins. We can't see well what's going on, due to the rough sea and the distance we have to keep. But yet, the formation of hunting boat has passed the narrows between the little lighthouse on the rock and the fishermen's gillnets.  An escape is getting more and more unlikely. Suddenly, everything happens pretty fast. We decide to head to the Marina as soon as possible in order to see what's going to happen in the cove. Florian, Kyoko and I are already taking off, while Michael and Yoshiko moor the boat.

We are too late to see much. And first, Florian is stopped by the police, who wants him to identify himself. From the public viewpoint directly above the cove we become witnesses of a boat who is hiding his dead carriage under green tarps and carrying it out off the cove to the harbor where the slaughterhouse is.

"They slaughtered about 20 to 25 bottle-nosed dolphins," Nicole explains sadly. She watched the whole scene on behalf of Sea Shepherd. "But they chose no living dolphin". Bottle-nosed dolphins are again the victim. The classic Flipper-dolphins. The girl's voice of the speaker from the whale museum and dolphinarium walks notable in our direction. The childish voice is telling about the show. The show with the bottle-nosed dolphins.