International pressure is mounting to stop the Japanese practice of dolphin and porpoise hunting. Entities such as the International Whaling Commission, Environmental Investigation Agency, Animal Welfare Institute, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation are being joined by activist groups such as Save Japan Dolphins and Sea Shepherd.

Knowledge of the practice of dolphin hunting gained publicity after a documentary on the subject, The Cove, won an Oscar.

From September to March each year, thirty or so fishermen from the small town of Taiji draw pods of whales and dolphins from the ocean into a narrow bay, where they kill and butcher the adults to sell as meat and capture the young to sell to aquariums around the world.

Worldwide media exposure from The Cove's Academy Award and pressure from groups such as Save Japan Dolphins and Sea Shepherd have started to reduce the numbers of dolphins that are hunted each year.

The demand for dolphins as a food source is high although their meat contains unsafe levels of mercury. The Cove's director says that when they first went to Japan the government was buying dolphin meat to feed to schoolchildren. Live dolphins are even more profitable: young ones can fetch $150,000 or more on the international market which supplies aquariums and parks in Japan as well as 14 other countries. To stop the international trade of live dolphins, activists are putting pressure on airlines, which can earn $50,000 for the transport of one dolphin.

Whale and Dolphin Conservation has written to 300 airlines asking them to confirm that they will never transport dolphins. Lufthansa was the first to sign up and how the list has 34 airlines including British Airways, Delta, and American Airlines.

More than half a million people have signed a TakePart petition to the President and Vice President of the United States, the Prime Minister and Minister of Health in Japan, and the Japanese Ambassador to the United States.

Activists plan to target the hunting of Dall's porpoises in Iwate Prefecture next.

[Watch the livestream from Taiji]