DOLPHIN slaughter season began in Japan on Tuesday, as the country kicked off an annual cull repeatedly condemned by animal rights groups.

    Activists from the environmentalist group Sea Shepherd calling themselves ‘Cove Guardians’ have been monitoring a by in Taiji, southwestern Japan, since the six-month dolphin hunting season began earlier this month.

    There were no details on the number of kills.

    The local fishermen’s association said they could not immediately confirm the report.

    The campaigners are streaming live footage of the secluded bay, into which local fishermen corral hundreds of dolphins for slaughter, a practice that thrust the small town into the global spotlight in 2010 when it was the subject of the Oscar winning documentary The Cove.

    Defenders of the cull say it is traditional and point out that the dolphins are not endangered, a position echoed by the Japanese government.

    They say Western objections are hypocritical and ignore the vastly larger number of cows, pigs and sheep butchered to satisfy demand elsewhere.

    Critics of the practice say there is insufficient demand for the dolphins’ meat, which in any case contains dangerous levels of mercury, to justify the annual cull.

    Last year, U.S. ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy drew intense criticism from nationalist organizations in the country when she tweeted that she was “deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing.” Kennedy has not commented on this year’s cull.

    Hong Kong animal rights groups have been publicly campaigning against the cull for a number of years. In August, Samuel Hung from the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society delivered a petition — signed by 4,000 Hongkongers — in person to the Japanese Consulate. The petition was also endorsed by a number of local and international animal rights groups, including the Jane Goodall Institute and Animals Asia.

    “Today a pod of Risso’s were murdered at the Cove,” Zoe Ng, a Hong Kong animal rights campaigner, told the South China Morning Post. “We’re frustrated beyond words. This year [the fishermen] hide behind tarps and still carry on their brutal murderous ways.”

    Dolphin hunting season opened Sept. 1 and is expected to continue until the end of February. (SD-Agencies)