Tokyo - At Taiji, a quaint whaling town 700 kilometres south of Tokyo, waves lap against steep rocks of a popular national park.
However, visitors are kept well away from the slaughter happening in a secluded lagoon nearby.
Japanese fishermen, backed by the country's government, are slaughtering thousands of dolphins off the coast, while ignoring both international protests and concerns about contaminated dolphin meat being sold to the public.
Between October and April, some 16 000 to more than 20 000 of the animals are killed in the annual hunt, in Taiji and other Japanese fishing towns, often cruelly stabbed with knives, hooks and lances.
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'This is a scandal' The mass slaughter goes ahead with the backing of the government, but without the majority of the population being aware of it.
Part of the marine mammals' flesh is sold in Japan, despite warnings of high-level mercury contamination, animal rights activists said.
"The dolphin meat is highly contaminated," dolphin activist Richard O'Barry said on Monday.
He sharply criticised Japan's government for keeping both the controversial slaughter and the contamination secret from the Japanese population.
"This is a scandal," said O'Barry, a former trainer of dolphins for the US television series Flipper.
Fishermen disable the dolphin's sense of direction by hammering on metal rods held into the sea, thereby herding them into a lagoon secured by nets.
"It often happens than babies are separated from their mothers and that pregnant dolphins miscarry because they panic," said O'Barry, who regularly travels to Taiji.
Every passerby walking on the road along the lagoon can see the mortal fear of the animals, he said.
"The cruelty happens long before the killing," he added.
Individual, particularly beautiful dolphins are selected in a lagoon with the aid of dolphin trainers and sold off at high profits to aquariums and dolphin shows around the world.
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