O'Barry and filmmaker 'Louie Psihoyos (I)' go about trying to expose one of what they see as the most cruel acts against wild dolphins in the world in Taiji, Japan, where dolphins are routinely corralled, either to be sold alive to aquariums and marine parks, or slaughtered for meat.
– More than 200 bottlenose dolphins await their deaths in Japan's Taiji cove—made infamous in 2009 documentary The Cove—and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is doing its best to draw attention and outrage to the annual slaughter. As CNN reports, Japanese fishermen herded a pod of 250 or so dolphins into the cove on Friday; a total of 37 dolphins, including an albino calf, have been separated from the larger group to be sold to aquariums, or as Sea Shepherd calls it, "a lifetime of imprisonment." It doesn't sound like a peaceful process: Two dolphins have been killed. Slaughter of the rest, which will be harvested for their meat, is expected to begin tomorrow. Sea Shepherd has been live-streaming video and tweeting from Taiji, with one update today reading, "Many of the 200+ Bottlenose dolphins who are in still the cove are visibly bloody & injured from their attempts to escape the killers." They've attracted the attention of new US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, who tweeted that she was "deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing."