An Australian marine science student, Nicole McLachlan, 19, of Lismore, described seeing netted striped dolphins throw themselves against rocky cliffs in panic before about 40 were dragged by their tails into a makeshift tent on a beach, and stabbed to death.
A graphic video of Tuesday's killing shot by the US group Save Japan Dolphins is said to disprove official claims that the hunt was made more humane after being exposed in last year's Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove.
Foreign conservationists from countries including Australia and the US have maintained a vigil at Taiji for almost five months to document the hunt by local fishermen.
Since September, about 670 dolphins have been killed in the cove, and another 150 have been captured, according to estimates by the Cove Guardian activists.
Ms McLachlan said Tuesday's dolphin pod was the largest she had seen since arriving in Japan in early December.
''One of the hardest things I have witnessed here is the distress and anguish of these animals during a slaughter,'' she wrote in a blog. ''And today some were taken under the tarps and killed while the rest of their family remained in the waters nearby.
''The cries and thrashing of the dying dolphins could be heard so loudly, even from all the way up on top of that hill … I can't even imagine what their families were thinking as they waited for their exact same fate.''
The US dolphin campaigner Ric O'Barry said the video disproved claims that killing methods had changed so that the animals died quickly and painlessly.
Underneath the tarpaulins set up to escape environmentalists' cameras, the fishermen used long spikes, driven into the dolphins behind the blowhole.
''According to a spokesman with the Japanese Fisheries Agency, filmed in The Cove, this method kills the dolphins instantly,'' Mr O'Barry said.
In fact, he said, the footage showed dolphins thrashing in agony for minutes amid their own blood and the screams of other dolphins being killed.
The mayor of Taiji, Kazutaka Sangen, told the Associated Press his community took pride in the hunt.
''We will pass down the history of our ancestors to the next generation, preserve it,'' Mr Sangen said.
''We have a strong sense of pride about this, so we are not going to change our plans for the town based on the criticism of foreigners.''
Sydney Morning Herald
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