The rally was held on September 25, which fell on the International Dolphin Day.�@I'm sure there were lots of similar protests in many other cities in the world. The one in Vancouver was organized by Erika Ceballos who belonged to a group calld CATCA(www.catcahelpanimal.org),
It was only about 20 of us that gathered at the corner of Georgia and Granvilled St. at 11:30am. However we had a good rally, walking down on Granville to Burrard St., then to Pender St., stopping finally in front of the building which the Consulate General of Japan located in. The RCMP officer who guarded the building was friendly & understanding, letting us stay for about an hour. We continued to speak up loud and distributed the flyers, To my surprise though, hundreds of flyers we kept handing out on our way there had almost been gone. People really showed the interest! Now I hope lots of them went further, looking up at the website, so they'd know more about the cruel reality of the slaughter.

I sent the pictures to my friends in Japan, got a few immediate responses. One of them brought up the seal hunt in Canada, mentioning the similarity and the difficulties to persuade the fishmen to stop the old tradition. The other had no idea that such a massacre was actually happening in the peaceful fishing village. The only knowledge she had about the dolpins in Japan was they happily (?) existed in acquariums entertaining and swimming with people, Sadly though, I believe that's the truth. The majority of Japanese have no idea about the dolphins and the whales much less rich emotion and high intelligence they possess.. To Japanese, such cetaceans are merely the extention of the fish species, so they are there to be fished and eaten(Mind you, Japanese never ate beef nor pork until the 20th century, and even now the consumption of animal meats are remarkably smaller compared with North America).

It must be so hard for the old society, especially for those related to the food industry in Japan to realize the cruelty and danger(accumulated toxins are there) of dophin hunting, and it might take years not months to save the them from the killing. However, we must start somewhere and keep going never to give up.
As one effective way, I'd like to ask many here in Canada to talk and educate young Japanese people on this topic. I often ride transit buses to work in the morning, finding many seats taken by the ESL students from Japan. If you have a chance to interact with them, or luckily have them in your house as a home-stay student, please take the opportunity to let them know about the slaughter. They'd be genuinely surprised but it would also be a start of one public awareness. I hope the young generation, with their flexible mind will contribute strongly for the change. After they understand the dolphins and their cries for help, that is.