Save Taiji Japan Dolphins

I am writing to you as a citizen of the planet who is deeply concerned about the hunting of dolphins occurring now in the cove in Taiji, Japan. The news is quite terrible about how they hunt wholes pods of dolphins trapping them in the cove overnight and then slaughtering whole families. Only some are saved and they are kept in captivity. It seems the Japanese Government sanctions this horrific slaughter. As far as I can tell, this slaughter is not really for the meat. It is more out of a false idea that the dolphins are outfishing them in the oceans. Now our oceans are being affected by many factors - but the dolphins are not a pest and should be protected from this abuse. I read this on a website called www.SaveJapanDolphins.org as follows 

"There is another essential, and rather shocking, aspect to the dolphin hunt: During a meeting with the Taiji fishermen in January 2004, the fishermen told us that they do not only hunt dolphins for their meat or for sale to the dolphinarium industry. In their own words, they kill the dolphins "as a form of pest control." The dolphins, from the fishermen’s perspective, eat too much fish, and the fishermen are simply killing the competition. This is the first time ever that Japanese dolphin hunters have openly admitted to executing pest control on dolphins. Over-fishing of the oceans is a tremendous problem on a global level, and the Japanese fishermen, supported by their government, are wrongly pointing at the dolphins as the reason for this depletion. The Japanese government is making the same false argument in front of the International Whaling Commission that whales eat fish and therefore need to be controlled by killing. The desire to keep the dolphin population down is a major reason why the Japanese government is so keen on issuing permits for the hunts. It is not really about providing meat for the Japanese people. It is not really about maintaining what the fishermen repeatedly refer to as their "tradition" or "culture." It is about eradicating as many dolphins as possible in order to make the oceans' fish available to themselves.  We know of several areas in Japan where local dolphin populations have declined or been eradicated by this mentality, fully supported by the Japanese government."

"In addition, the powerful Japan Fisheries Agency promotes the killing of dolphins and whales as part of Japan’s “food culture”, despite the fact that few Japanese are interested in eating whale and dolphin meat anymore, and huge surpluses are kept in refrigerated warehouses. The Agency sees their role as protecting the Japanese people from the consequences of overfishing worldwide – if environmentalists shut down whaling and dolphin killing, their reasoning goes, then other Japanese fishing methods and species might be attacked. The whaling staff of the Japan Fisheries Agency has an additional very personal incentive: sale of whale meat and government subsidies to protect whaling pays for their salaries. If whaling and dolphin killing end, these bureaucrats will be out of a job."