The Final Horrific Day for the 250+ Bottlenose Dolphins: Captive Selection Ends and 40 Dolphins are Slaughtered, The Rest are Driven Back to Sea.

 

40 bottlenose dolphins were callously murdered on their 4th day trapped in the cove.
One dolphin drowned within nets while trying to escape.
A total body count of 41 dolphins slaughtered  today
from the original 250+ driven into The Cove. 
50 dolphins were selected for captivity days 1, 2 & 3.

The Taiji killers started working early on the 200+ dolphin's 4th day trapped in The Cove.  The killers then began their terrible slaughtering of the dolphins.  The dedicated Sea Shepard Cove Guardians started their Livestream broadcast to document and expose that final, horrific day.

Killers enter the cove just after sunrise
Hearing the killer's skiffs alarms and agitates the bottlenose dolphins.

The killers started this ugly day by taking the dolphins netted closest to the killing shore of The Cove. Those dolphins were manhandled into the small nets for their second trip underneath the tarps, this time the trip will be their final, fatal visit.  When they leave, they will be tied in groups by their flukes and towed by killers in skiffs, out of The Cove, and eventually to the Taiji butcher house.  Once there, their lifeless bodies will be cut up and later sold as meat.  Dolphins are priceless to most people who delight in their playfulness and natural friendliness towards humans, for the Taiji killers, a dead dolphin is worth about $500 for it's meat.



Killers push the dolphins into the killing cove

The Bottlenose pod was so exhausted that they did not put up much of a fight
while being herded toward the tarps.

These dolphins have experienced "hell on earth" at the hands of the Taiji killers.  This is the dolphin's 4th day of being trapped in The Cove, plus the day being driven to The Cove, so 5 days of horror. They have been starved by the killers since their last meal and hydration (which comes form eating fresh fish) was some unknown time before the killers found them swimming past Japan 5 days ago.  



A remaining pod of approximately 130-140 dolphins
were left to witness their family slaughtered.



One of the poor dolphins was seen trying to escape death.  He swam at the net becoming trapped in it after he tore the net from trying so HARD to get away and escape.  Sadly, the hole was not large enough for the dolphin to break completely through and make his escape.  A skiff of killers saw the dolphin, and went to remove him from the net so they could kill him later.  After removing the dolphin, the killers ran him over with their skiff as they moved away.

One dolphin's last attempt to escape death breaking through the net,
 but too weak to make it through, the killers free it and run it over with skiff

Exhausted bottlenose dolphin looks his killer in the eye.
Bottlenose dolphins are naturally friendly to mankind,
why are a few "men" so unkind to the dolphins?

The Cove was now starting to turn a light red as the blood of the first slaughtered dolphins bled into the water.  The killers use wood dowels to plug the wounds made from stabbing the dolphins in their blowholes.  The killers do this to try and prevent the dolphin's blood from staining The Cove water - a PR move that fails.  The sheer quality of blood that is shed, even after plugging the wounds, still turns The Cove red.....

The Red Cove
The slaughtered bottlenose dolphin's blood flows out from under
the tarps where the dolphins are killed  

Dolphins are seen swimming in the blood of their relatives

The killers callously run the dolphins over with their skiffs, they make no effort to avoid the trapped dolphins as they go about their terrible work.  The dolphins are often injured by the skiff's propeller. 



The killers run their skiff over the dolphins
The killers make no effort to avoid injuring the dolphins with the skiffs propellers

The SSCG's camera found a weaken dolphin, barely able to keep it's head above water, some killers in a skiff spotted it too and moved closer.  A diver caught the starved dolphin, took a rope that is fixed to the skiff and put the loop of the rope around the poor dolphin's flukes.  The killers in the skiff then dragged the dolphin backwards by it's tail, which forces the dolphin's head underwater where  it cannot breath.  The killer dragged the dolphin tail first, under the tarps where it was slaughtered. 

Dolphins were too weak to fight back.

The killers kill the dolphins by taking the rope attached to the skiff, that has dragged the dolphin tail first, underneath the tarps which hides the killer's activity.  A waiting killer on the shore takes the rope from the killer in the skiff, and fastens the rope's other looped end to a post in the sand.  That anchors the dolphin so it cannot get away from the killer while he murders the dolphin. The killer takes a short spear called a "pith" ("verb, used with an object, meaning to destroy the spinal cord or brain of" ) and stabs the victim dolphin through his blowhole repeatedly to try and sever the dolphin's spinal cord.


Pith with wood dowel or plug

It must be terribly painful to be tied up and stabbed over and over again into the sensitive blowhole and not be able to get away.  When the killer decides he has severed the dolphin's spine, he takes a wood dowel and plugs the blowhole (now a wound) to keep the dolphin from bleeding too much and staining The Cove red.  The dolphin perhaps with his spine severed, perhaps not, bleeds out anyway, and slowly suffocates from having his blowhole plugged.  He trashes with his tail tied to the shore, as he suffers and suffocates, his spasms are terrible as he slowly dies.  The Japanese government has stated that the slaughter is humane and bloodless, does this sound humane?  Watch the video below and see for yourself.



Warning the video above shows how the dolphins are killed in Taiji.  This was taken in January 2011 of the slaughter of what appears to be a small pod of white sided dolphins - the slaughter is ugly.  Because these dolphins are smaller, their bodies are piled into the boat rather than towed to the butcher house as larger bottlenose dolphins are.  Please be sure to read the text at the films end.  This video was made by AtlanticBlue.de  Thank you for your courage to witness this.

A dead dolphin is seen through the tarps.  The Cove water is Red

Two dead dolphins are seen through the tarps. 
Between 40 and 50 bottlenose dolphins were slaughtered
A terrible death being stabbed to death after 5 days of starvation and trauma

While the killers were slaughtering dolphins, they found a "pretty" dolphin that they missed!  They forced her into a sling and took her out of The Cove and to the Taiji Harbor pens for a life as a show dolphin.  That poor dolphin swam in the blood of her murdered family and friends and heard them thrash and call out as they were slaughtered.  A trained show dolphin is worth more than $100,000, as meat, only $500 and nothing if released into the ocean and freedom.  From the killers point of view it makes more sense to keep dolphins for captivity ($$$$$) or meat ($): GREED trumps humanity.

After a little over 2 hours, a skiff leaves towing the bodies of the dead or almost dead dolphins, past their still living family and friends.   The skiff with killers, have draped the dolphin's dead bodies with tarps to try and hide the bodies from the witnesses at Taiji, the SSCG's cameras and the watching world.   But sometimes the wind blows (a divine wind?) and exposes the bodies which are seen by the witnesses and cameras.  Why do the killers try and hide their "Tradition" are they not proud of what they have done?  They take great pains to cover up what they do.  Remember, they also have tarps to cover up the examinations for captive selection and the murders they commit .  Why?



Killers hiding their culture and tradition covering the bodies of the
dead bottlenose dolphins as a skiff leaves The Cove
to take the slaughtered dolphins to the butcher house
to be cut up for meat and sold.



Then, a second skiff towing dead dolphins leaves The Cove.  The SSCG's Livestream broadcast showed The Cove's now very red water as the skiff moved away and towards the butcher house.

Banger boat transfers the bodies of the slaughtered bottlenose dolphins
to be received at the butcher house.  There the dolphins will be cut up as meat

Just past the 3rd hour, a 3rd skiff left towing more dead bottlenose dolphins to the butcher house to be cut up and sold as meat to Japanese people.  Why would the Japanese eat friendly, beautiful dolphins?  Especially when dolphin's meat has high levels of mercury because it is a top predator.  Their bodies absorb mercury from all fish they eat, and over time it collects in the tissues, so it does not make good sense to eat food that is toxic.

The Cove killing activity slowed down after the 3rd hour as the killers loaded up skiffs, numbers 4 and 5.  It was not known how many bodies each of the 5 skiffs were towing.  Afterwards it was reported that about 40 bottlenose dolphins had been slaughtered.

During the killer's break, the SSCG monitors talked about how especially hard this has been on these dolphins today.  The dolphins slaughtered today fought as best they could after being starved and traumatized the past 4 or 5 days.  But being so exhausted they were not able to fight as hard as other bottlenose pods that had been slaughtered in the past.  Just an awful thought for all these dolphins have been through.... we MUST help stop this terrible industry. The Japanese government allows the Taiji killers to take about 2 thousand dolphins and small whales (pilot whales which are actually members of the dolphin family) every year from September to March.  These so called "traditional" dolphin drives have only been happening for the past 40 years or so - not a long tradition.  It would have been too expensive in fuel to look for dolphins at sea and drive them back to shore, it is only because of the market for selling dolphins at very high prices for the huge entertainment industy that the drives have happened like this.  These drives to hunt dolphins have paid for lots of expensive equipment for the killers.

Cove Guardians bear witness to 40 dolphins being slaughtered.

The SSCG's showed via their Livestream, how the dolphins are transferred from the skiffs to the bigger banger boats which take the bodies to the butcher house.  The banger boats tow the dolphins dead bodies on the side of the boat that faces away from shore most of the time, to keep witnesses from seeing the bodies.  They also have a metal structure attached to one side of the boat on which to drape the blue tarps to cover the bodies.  The killers really don't want anyone to see what they are doing - such a proud tradition!

A remaining pod was later driven back out to sea

The remaining bottlenose dolphins still alive after all the horror they have been through, and just witnessed, were huddled together in the netted off area.  These poor dolphins were still waiting their fate and would become agitated every time they heard the skiffs coming closer to them, as the killers towed the bodies of their pod mates past them.  The skiff's motors herald the possibility of more torture.

Hungry, frightened and tired; these dolphins had to hear their families be slaughtered
 and had to swim in their blood. Nothing humane about this

After the killers enjoyed their lunch they finally released the remaining bottlenose dolphins who managed to survive the grueling 5 days.  Saying that the killers released the few surviving members of the original 250+ dolphins is a nice way of saying that the killers were in fact, driving them hard back out to sea with several banger boats chasing them.  The exhausted, starving, perhaps injured dolphins swam as fast as they could to escape the terrible killers and cove.  Even so, a few distraught dolphins were seen trying to swim back to The Cove to look for their missing family members, the ones that were taken from them either for dolphin shows or slaughtered.

Pod being driven back out to sea after 5 days of starvation and trauma,
some may not survive the killers treatment.  But the important thing to the
killers, is that those deaths won't be counted against their quota!



The killers took their time letting the survivors go.  It seemed like the killers wanted the dolphins to suffer for a little more time while the killers took their lunch break - no going hungry for the killers.  They seemed to deliberately do that to further torture the starving, traumatized dolphins - and show contempt for everyone watching their cruel industry. 

A juvenile Bottlenose barely surfaces during drive out.
The chances of survival are slim after 5 tormenting days in the cove.

Some or many of the released bottlenose dolphins may not survive the 5 days of starvation, dehydration, injuries and the traumas of being trapped, manhandled during the selection process and having their family members stolen from them.  Some are babies and juveniles too small to be worth it to slaughter (be counted against the killers quota) or too young for captivity and will starve without their mothers to provide milk and nurture.  Angel Shoujo was the first to be taken from her mother's side, where is her mother?  Did she pass captive selection? Was she slaughtered?  Was she one of the dolphins released?  Was she one of the dolphins who lingered after being chased back out to sea, looking for their missing loved ones?

The albino calf, later named Angel Shoujo, swimming with  her mother in The Cove
 from Jan 17th 2014 Dolphin Hunt Drive in Taiji
The next day Angel Shoujo was the first dolphin taken during the captive selection,
she was taken from her mother who was not able to protect her from the killers.

The drive out is just as traumatic as the drive in.
Some dolphins linger to find family.

Tomorrow it all begins again.  
The killers will go out in their banger boats to hunt for more dolphins to drive into The Cove.  The season still has more than two more months left and more money for the killers to make.  The killers are allowed to practice their horrible drive hunts from September to March.  And they will every year until enough people take action to help all dolphins and whales.

Update 1-25-14:  SSCG report "2-3 captive Bottlenose dolphins found floating dead in Taiji harbor pens."  These dolphins were captives from the 3rd day of captive selection and did not survive their first days of captivity after the stress of the 5 days of the 250+ bottlenose dolphin drive.  Their bodies were taken to the butcher house to be sold as meat.  More photos.

"2-3 captive Bottlenose dolphins found floating dead in Taiji harbor pens."

Please help, spread the word to your family and friends, sign petitions, express your views on media sites whenever there is a story and most of all Do Not Buy a Ticket to Any Places that have Captive Cetaceans or Swim with Dolphin Programs.  When you take away the Taiji' killer's market, you take away the money they get from selling dolphins and other cetaceans.  Please be a voice for dolphins, they need our help.

~ Kindness for Animals


See and find out more about this incredibly sad day:

• Sea Shepard Cove Guardian PHOTOS of this last awful day - as hard as it is to read and see the photos and video, the SSCG have been witnessing every day in person as it happens.  I don't think I can fully imagine how hard that must be.  Thank you Brave and Dedicated Cove Guardians.
• Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project  PHOTOS of the awful day for the remaining members of the original 250+ bottlenose dolphin family.  Thank you Brave and Dedicated Dolphin Project Team.

Please read more about this tragic story of the 250+ dolphin pod with a baby albino dolphin that happened over 5 days:
Day 1 - Dolphin Drive Captures 250+ Dolphins Plus Baby Albino

Day 2 - First Day of Captive Selection:

Day 2 - Baby Albino Dolphin, Angel, is Taken First into Captivity

Day 3 - Horrific Second Day of Captive Selection

Day 4 - 3rd Day of Captive Selection
Day 5 - This is this post: The slaughter of 40 of the remaining dolphins who have survived so far and release and drive back out to sea of the exhausted, injured, traumatized and starving dolphins.

Very good report from Reuters about this terrible January day in Taiji from Reuters Videos
 

4th Day of the Horrific 250+ Bottlenose Dolphin Drive in Taiji Japan, 3rd Day of Selection Continues

The captive selection was a grueling 8 hours. 
 It took 3 traumatic days for the greedy Taiji fishermen to catch each of the 250+ dolphins
one by on, examine them to determine if they were salable to the captive dolphin industry. 
Those were removed, the rest were marked with white paint on their backs. 
The marked dolphins await their fate on the 4th:  slaughter or release? 
Any released are in very poor condition to survive,
 they have not eaten since before the drive, now 5 days ago.

The unfortunate 250+ bottlenose dolphins continue to be brutalized on the 4th day (I include their traumatic drive to The Cove) of the Taiji dolphin drive, and the 3rd day of captive selection. 

The dedicated Sea Shepard Cove Guardians began their Livestream broadcast early in the morning to document the awful treatment of the huge pod of 250+ bottlenose dolphins at the hands of the Taiji Japan fisherman "killers".

Killers entering The Cove to start the 3rd day of captive selection

The Killers continued their callous selection process to pick the "pretty" dolphins that they can sell for lots of money to aquariums and swim with dolphin programs all over the world, this industry is only about GREED.   The killers were being even more picky on this 3rd day, to find the ones that would fetch the highest prices.  So many of the dolphins have been injured over the last 3 days by the killers who crowded the panicked dolphins into the nets and ran them over with the skiffs, so there are now fewer "pretty" ones to chose from.

Dolphins became agitated as the killers entered the cove.

The 210+ dolphins (40 had already been selected and removed for captivity the 2 previous days) still trapped in the netted off cove were caught by the divers, one by one and manhandled into small nets hanging off the sides of the killer's skiffs.   After being netted, each dolphin is dragged underneath the tarps and examined by the trainers.  If the dolphin passes the examination as being worth money to sell to the captive dolphin market, it is then put into a sling on one side of a skiff.  When a second dolphin is found it is put on the skiff's other side, then both dolphins are taken to the harbor pens.  Later the trainers will work with them to be trained dolphins so they can be sold for more money, several 100 thousand dollars to dolphin shows vs about $500 butchered for meat.

Dolphins fighting to avoid the Taiji fishermen nets for captive selection

Even after 4 days of starvation and dehydration, the exhausted dolphins fight the killers to get away from them as the divers grab them and wrestle them then to be netted and dragged underneath the tarps. There they are examined and their fate determined: captivity or slaughter...with maybe a small chance of release if they are worth too little money.

Killers marked unsuitable for captivity dolphins with white paint under the tarps

 The ones not picked for captivity are painted with white paint on the dolphin's backs or dorsal fins to mark them as unsuitable for sale.  I think it very unlikely that the paint used on the dolphins has  been approved for application on sensitive skin.  Any dolphins "lucky" enough to be released with paint on them, have already had their health severely compromised from the forced 4 day starvation and dehydration since eating fresh fish is how they "drink".  Add that to the extreme trauma of being manhandled, and possible injury in the crowded nets, any adults that are released may have a hard time surviving.



Divers among the dolphins who are trying to avoid getting captured.



Release sounds wonderful for a lucky few, but it is most always the young babies and juveniles who the killers release because they do not want to waste their precious quota numbers on dolphins not "pretty" enough for captivity and the live dolphin market.  Instead of wasting their quota numbers on nursing babies, and juveniles who are too small in weight for butchering as food (making less money for the killers than larger adults) they are usually taken by skiff and dumped out at sea.  There they are ledt to fend for themselves with out mothers to nurse them or adults to care for, teach them or protect them.  Release for these young ones means a lonely death of starvation or predation at sea without their family.  Bottlenose dolphins remain with their family pods for most of their lives so releasing the ones too young will mean death - but NOT count against the Japanese government set quota for the Taiji fishermen.  Again, it's all about GREED.

 

One Bottlenose dolphin threw herself against the skiff as killers
 approached her during the captive selection

Early on the morning's selection, as one of the dolphins was being manhandled by the divers, other dolphins (it's close family? friends?) clung to it making it harder for the divers to get the net around it and drag it away under the tarps.  Dolphins live in family groups and care for one another, there was a report, with video (HERE) from last January of a group of long beaked common dolphins making a raft of their bodies to help a dying pod member stay above the water so she could breathe.  This is kind of care and empathy for another being is something we usually think of as something only humans do, this is further evidence of how wrong the Taiji killers are to treat sentient dolphins and other cetaceans as mere commodities for sale as entertainment and for meat.

Dolphin surrounded by killers in skiffs as divers manhandle it
to get it into the small net for captive selection

Dolphin manhandled into a net to be examined for possible captivity
 for the rest of it's life or possible slaughter

After a few hours the killers took a break, after the break, a skiff came back to the cove while the SSCG were watching a dolphin all by itself near the edge of one net.   It seemed exhausted and kept sinking underwater only coming up occasionally by poking it's head out of the water to take a breath, then sink back underwater again.  Then, while the CC were watching, that single skiff coming back to The Cove, deliberately ran the injured or exhausted dolphin over!  There was nothing on either side of the net, nothing and the skiff 's operator, instead of choosing a slightly different route, the killer just ran the poor dolphin over.  To the killers dolphins are just swimming money to be grabbed.

Skiff with killers take 2 dolphins in slings to the harbor pen
for a live time of captivity in the dolphin entertainment industry.

After 4 hours of captive selection 8 dolphins had been selected for captivity and taken away in slings to the pens in Taiji Harbor.  A SSCG team keeping an eye on the butcher house where the slaughtered dolphins are taken to be butchered, radioed to let the Livestream narrators know that the butcher house had been prepared to receive dead dolphins when the slaughter begins.

Angel Shoujo now captive at the Taiji Whale Museum after being taken away from her mother
 who remains with the other dolphins trapped in The Cove

Capt Paul Watson called to talk with the SSCG Cove Leader Melissa Sehgal on the Livestream broadcast about this particular 250+ bottlenose dolphin drive, and the mission of the SSCG to help stop the drives.  Paul Watson also talked about calling the albino baby, caught with these dolphins, Shoujo, meaning little girl in Japanese.  Captive Cetaceans SBTS later in the day, posted this on the CCSBTS  Facebook page:  "Ric O Barry named this baby Angel yesterday after one of his cove guardians said she was like an angel with fins. Today Paul Watson decided to call her Shoujo. As we had been calling her Angel all day yesterday and I am sure Paul Watson would not have known she had already been named. In respect to both great animal advocates who both fight against the Cove, she will be known on this page as Angel Shoujo." 
We will call her Angel Shoujo on this blog.

Killers and trainers warmed themselves by a fire during their lunchtime break
The dolphins had been held for over 72 hours without food

Shortly after that call, the trainers took a break for lunch on the cove beach and warm themselves by their beach fire.  In the meantime, these dolphin's last meal (and water) was probably the day before the drive which was 4 days ago, so 5 days since the dolphin's last nourishment.  Yet the dolphins continue to fight hard to keep from being netted and dragged underneath the tarps.  It was heartbreaking to hear the dolphins calling out to one another through out the Livestream broadcast, their calls sound like urgent bird peeps.

Cove Guardians Kirsten, Tom, Dominick and Ian document from the cove.



Through out what we though would be the last day, the killers kept tightening the main net as they worked through the remaining pod members with their captive selection.  The dolphins not selected to live the rest of their lives entertaining people in aquariums or swim with dolphin programs, were taken to a larger netted area in The Cove with the rest of the dolphins marked with white paint. These exhausted dolphins that have already been through selection, swam slowly, some barely moving.  Eventually all 250+ bottlenose dolphins will have under gone the brutal captive selection, and about 200+ dolphins will be wait for their final fate to be determined by the killers.

Newly captive dolphins jump as new captives are brought into the sea pens

The captive selection of so many dolphins has taken 2 full days and it is nearly now 7 hours on this 3rd day, and the killers are not yet done doing selection with all 250+ dolphins.  Greed made them work most of a day to capture 5 different pods 4 days ago.  Now they have so many dolphins they have to take days to make all the captive selections.  The killers rampant greed catching so many dolphins, more than they can humanely handle, and now the dolphins have to suffer many days of the killers brutal treatment.  There is going to have to be another day, day 5, of the dolphins suffering.  The 5th day (including the drive day) will definitely lead to the ugly mass slaughter of most or all the white marked bottlenose dolphins.  If any of these starving, traumatized dolphins are released, they will be in very poor shape to survive.  Of course that is not important to the killers, as long as those deaths are not counted towards their quota... it is ALL about money. 

The violent process of captive selection is exactly what Marine Parks do not want you to see.

After nearly 8 hours the killers finally finish their captive selections, a total of 11 Bottlenose were taken today, 51 in the last three days.  The trainers leave the cove and the killers stay and reposition the nets keeping the remaining 200+ dolphins in two separate groups, very probably to make tomorrow easier for them.  They also removed the yellow plastic on the rocks that helps keep the dolphins from getting damaged (don't want any potential "pretty" show dolphin damaging itself and losing the killers money) and bloodied as they fling themselves on the rocks trying to escape.  The remaining dolphins getting bloodied and hurt on the rocks won't matter to the killers tomorrow.   The remaining 200+ bottlenose dolphins will remain trapped in The Cove for a 4th night.  This means a 5th day (I include the drive day) of trauma.  Tomorrow, the SSCG stated that they believe that some of the 200+ dolphins will be slaughtered and they hope that some will be released.

200 plus dolphins remain in the cove for a 4th night of suffering - what will tomorrow bring?
Slaughter or Release? Release for some & slaughter for the rest?

As the SSCG ended their Livestream broadcast, you could see those 200+ dolphins swimming in circles in the middle of each of the 2 netted areas, trying to comfort one another with close body contact as they stay far away from the nasty nets and shore.  We could hear the dolphins calling out to one another, it's too bad that the killers would not allow the dolphins to spend their last night together.  Tomorrow will be awful........

~ Kindness for Animals

See and find out more about this incredibly sad day:

• Sea Shepard Cove Guardian PHOTOS of the awful day - as hard as it is to read and see the photos, the SSCG are witnessing the day in person as it happens.  I don't think I can fully imagine how hard that must be.  Thank you Cove Guardians.

Please read more about this tragic story of the 250+ dolphin pod with a baby albino dolphin that happened over 5 days:
Day 1 - Dolphin Drive Captures 250+ Dolphins Plus Baby Albino

Day 2 - First Day of Captive Selection:

Day 2 - Baby Albino Dolphin, Angel, is Taken First into Captivity

Day 3 - Horrific Second Day of Captive Selection

Day 4 - This is this post: 3rd Day of Captive Selection

Day 5 - The slaughter of 40 of the remaining dolphins who have survived so far and release and drive back out to sea of the exhausted, injured, traumatized and starving dolphins.

Updated to include this BBC report on YouTube of this 250+ bottlenose dolphin pod.  This has excellent SSCG video footage of the activity in The Cove with these dolphins, you can even catch a glimpse of the young albino dolphin Angel Shoujo towards the end.
 

Angel, the Young Albino Dolphin from the January 18th Taiji Dolphin Drive Taken to Taiji Whale Museum

Angel the young albino bottlenose dolphin at Taiji Whale Museum

The baby albino bottlenose dolphin that was the first to be captured from the enormous (250+) dolphin pod in Taiji Japan was taken to the Taiji Whale Museum without her mother.  The photo above shows the little white dolphin with another young dolphin also taken from its mother.

Some  (Save Japan Dolphins Volunteer Cove Monitor Karla Sanjur and Richard O'Barry) have started calling the white dolphin "Angel".  Angel really does shimmer in the water, so it seems to be a good name to call her and perhaps she will become the Angel to help save other cetaceans who so desperately need our help.

We know she is female because the Taiji Whale Museum has posted so on their FB page announcing that she is captive there.  [Update: they have shut down their FB page after 2300+ angry comments about Angel's captivity].   Below is what they have posted about her:

体色の白いバンドウイルカを搬入
17日に漁獲された群の中に、体色の白いバンドウイルカが発見されました。このイルカは全身が白色で、目が淡紅色であることから、突然変異で体に色素をもたないアルビノ(先天性色素欠乏症)であると推測されます。
本日このイルカを博物館内のイルカショープールに搬入いたしました。この白いイルカはメスで、体長約２ｍ、体重約１００㎏で、今後経過を観察していきたいと思います。
【お知らせ】
 (Translated by Bing)
White bottlenose dolphin's body was transported. Group to 17, had been caught in the color white bottlenose dolphins has been identified.

Guess this Dolphin is white in the body the eyes are light pink, because without the dye body mutation in albino (Congenital pigmented deficiency). Today this Dolphin has been brought to the Museum in Dolphin Show pool.
In female white dolphins, at about 2 m in length and weight about 100 kg and future followed we hope you want to think. [Announcement]

The Sea Shepard Cove Guardians were speculating during the Livestream, that because she is an albino, meaning that she has no skin pigment, she may be blind and or deaf as some animals are with albinism.  If so, it is especially awful that she was taken from her mother because her mother would have guided and protected her from harm.  The SSCG also speculated that Angel may have Chédiak–Higashi syndrome like the deceased captive Orca Chimo although that syndrome usually shows as partial albinism, and Angel is pure white with pink eyes.  In the photo, you can see that her dorsal fin is tinged pink, that is because the thinner parts of the body allow the blood vessels near the skin to tint the skin pink.  Because of her albinism, Angel lacks the pigment melanin, the pigment in skin that that protects from the sun, she will easily sunburn and is very susceptible to skin cancer.  Dolphins in the wild do not spend much time at the oceans surface, which has protected Angel up until now.  Captive dolphins spend hours at the surface of their small tanks because of nothing to do and no where to go, so Angel will suffer from her sun exposure in the Whale Museum tank.  She should be given protection with shade, though that will likely not be given to her.  Better still, she should be returned to her mother and family, and allowed their freedom in the ocean. 

 

Angel being taken captive by the Taiji "fishermen"
Sea Shepard Cove Guardian photo

Angel on her first day at the Taiji Whale Museum after her tragic capture,
you can see how she was injured and bloodied from the ordeal

The Taiji Whale Museum has been described as more about whaling, capturing cetaceans for food, than conservation.  This is now where Angel will be held captive for the rest of her now shortened life, or to be sold for a very high price because she is now a "rare commodity" as the "property" of the Whale Museum.  In reality, she IS special and rare, and has now become a symbol for the Anti-Captivity movement, someday Angel will be free, either she is rehabilitated and given back her freedom in the sea, or she will die and finally become free of her captivity.

 

Angel swimming with her mother before her capture
Sea Shepard Cove Guardian photo

 

Updated to include a YouTube video of Angel in her tank with another young dolphin at the Taiji Whale Museum.  So sad to see them trapped in the confines of this terrible place, see how they cling together as they swim.  Many thanks to Yoshi Ko for taking the video and Holly Quinn for posting it on YouTube.

 

 

 

 

Updated:  There is now a Petition asking that the Taiji Whale Museum release Angel.

Please read more about this tragic story of the 250+ dolphin pod with a baby albino dolphin that happened over 5 days:

Day 1 - Dolphin Drive Captures 250+ Dolphins Plus Baby Albino

Day 2 - First Day of Captive Selection:

Day 2 - This is this post: Baby Albino Dolphin, Angel, is Taken First into Captivity

Day 3 - Horrific Second Day of Captive Selection Continues

Day 4 - 3rd Day of Captive Selection

Day 5 - The slaughter of 40 of the remaining dolphins who have survived so far and release and drive back out to sea of the exhausted, injured, traumatized and starving dolphins.
See the sad Photo Story of Angel Shoujo after a month in captivity at the Taiji Whale Museum.

Update 1-19-14:
 Captive Cetaceans SBTS  Facebook page:  "Ric O Barry named this baby Angel yesterday after one of his cove guardians said she was like an angel with fins. Today Paul Watson decided to call her Shoujo. As we had been calling her Angel all day yesterday and I am sure Paul Watson would not have known she had already been named. In respect to both great animal advocates who both fight against the Cove, she will be known on this page as Angel Shoujo."  And so we will call her Angel Shoujo on the blog.


~ Kindness for Animals