A rare, pure white dolphin was stolen from the sea and is being held in a captive prison in Japan.
On January 17, 2014, a huge pod of dolphins was driven into the cove in Taiji, Japan, where hundreds of dolphins are slaughtered every year. Among the dolphins that day was a very young and pure white dolphin that came to be known as Angel.
Once the hunters saw the white dolphin’s albino uniqueness, they knew they wanted to catch her and put her in a captive prison. Tourists pay big money to view dolphins, and the hunters knew that a white dolphin would bring in a lot of money. So, the hunters separated Angel from her mother, killed her family, and sold her to the Taiji Whale Museum, where she resides to this day.
The International Marine Mammal Project has been fighting for Angel’s release to a sea pen ever since. We helped to file a lawsuit against the Taiji Whale Museum and continue to spread the word about her plight.
You can see her captive prison here:
Each year, as documented in the film The Cove, thousands of dolphins are rounded up from the open ocean, herded to shore and netted off in a cove. Then, dolphin trainers come to separate the “show quality” dolphins from their families and sell them to aquariums and dolphinariums around the world. The rest of the dolphins are then slaughtered in front of their families, with a few traumatized individuals sometimes released back to sea.
The International Marine Mammal Project will work until the slaughters are stopped and the white, albino dolphin Angel is released from the Taiji Whale Museum prison.