Cultural sensitivity is important. Respect is important. But for a handful of people fighting for the highly questionable practice of dolphin hunting in Taiji, Japan, these are their only defenses. It is true that tradition is a vital part of society, but in light of the documentation of these dolphin hunts and the political schematics that surround them, it is hard to believe that tradition is really the core of the issue. Hunters corral and trap dolphins in an isolated cove in the remote fishing village of Taiji. The following day a percentage of these dolphins will be selected, captured and shipped around the world for the entertainment of tourists at the average price of $150,000 each. The remaining dolphins in the cove will be slaughtered for meat. They are stabbed repeatedly with spears and the killing is neither swift nor painless. According to dolphin activist Ric O’Barry, many of the dolphins bought for entertainment will become so stressed by their captive environment that they, too, will die.

The dolphin drives last from September to March with an estimated 23,000 dolphins killed each year. The Japanese government fights hard for its right to kill these dolphins. There are testimonials that the Japanese government pays bankrupt countries to join the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and vote against passing a bill that would ban dolphin hunting. This leads one to wonder why a government would work so hard to keep a small village killing dolphins.

Japan controls the world fish market and this income is a huge bolster to the Japanese economy. But overfishing is a very real problem with immediate implications. Fish supplies in the ocean are dropping at a dangerous rate. We are not only depleting species of fish but damaging entire ecosystems with our current fishing practices. When O’Barry contacted the dolphin hunters of Taiji and offered to pay them the amount of money they would make in dolphin revenues in exchange for not hunting, they replied that it was not only about the money – it was about “pest-control”.

Dolphins eat fish. If there are fewer dolphins to eat fish, there are more fish available to be caught, eaten and sold by humans.

Slaughtering thousands of dolphins in the name of pest-control is essentially the principle of killing off the competition.

Then there is the problem of what to do with all the physical remains. Dolphin meat has highly toxic levels of mercury. This is a known fact among health officials, but still the meat is being widely sold and distributed throughout Japan. There was even a time when dolphin meat was part of the compulsory public school lunches in Japan.

Compared to all the other horrible things people are doing to each other and the environment, the slaughter of 23,000 dolphins a year may seem like a drop in the bucket. But the implications are huge. Japan is continuing to hunt dolphins despite the outrage of many countries. This attitude of blatant disregard for the well-being of most of the world and the unwillingness to change or find compromise represents much of what is wrong with politics the world over.