The cruel hunt for dolphins in Taiji Bay has begun: the waters of Japan are once again stained with blood

September 1, 2026 marked the reopening of the cetacean hunting season in Taiji Bay, Japan, a cruel practice destined to continue until March 2027. From the early hours, the hunters’ boats intercepted a school of around 200 bottlenose dolphins in the open sea, hunting them for hours until they were pushed into the shallow waters of the bay. Activist Kunito Seko, present on site to document the events with real-time images, confirmed that at least 100 specimens were surrounded with special nets that eliminate any possibility of escape.

Inside the bay a real bedlam of suffering takes place, where the cries of the cetaceans mix with those of the fishermen and divers, in a trap that does not spare even the little ones.

Slaughter for meat and the business of captivity

The fate of the trapped animals is divided between slaughter and imprisonment. Some of the cetaceans are killed on the spot after agony that can last days, and the dolphin meat is then sent to supermarket shelves. The younger and healthier specimens are instead selected by specialized personnel to fuel the water park trade.

Primary training for the dolphinarium show often begins in small tanks adjacent to the bay, while the other members of the group still lie captive in the nets. Between the shock, the wounds and the terror, several specimens die before reaching their destination, while the few unselected survivors are thrown back into the open sea after suffering irreversible trauma.

Operation Cove Siege hunting quotas and resistance

The overall quota set for the 2026/2027 season involves the capture or killing of over 1,800 animals: 100 oblique-toothed dolphin, 280 attenuated dolphin, 450 coeruleoalba dolphin, 20 steno bredabensis, 300 dolphin dolphin, 263 bottlenose dolphins, 251 Risso’s dolphin, 49 pseudorca crassidens and 101 Gray’s pilot whale.

Data from the previous season shows that out of 1,100 cetaceans pushed into the bay, 416 were killed and 84 captured alive. Faced with this massacre, the independent observers of Operation Cove Siege patrol the coast of Taiji with the aim of witnessing, documenting and reporting to the world a barbaric massacre that the local authorities are trying to keep hidden.