SYDNEY — The Broome Shire Council voted Tuesday to unanimously reject an earlier resolution to effectively suspend its sister-city status with Taiji, after it expressed concern over the Wakayama Prefecture town's annual dolphin cull.
Until this year, fishermen in Taiji herded into shallows thousands of dolphins that were mainly slaughtered for their meat. The plight of the dolphins in Taiji was highlighted in "The Cove," a recently released film that contained bloody footage of the kill and sparked outrage around the world.
The Taiji Fisheries Cooperative has not killed any dolphins in the current harvest, which started at the beginning of September, a co-op official said Wednesday, adding it caught dolphins to sell to aquariums in Japan and killed whales for food.