Dolphins are legally protected in Australian waters, but in Japan, Peru, the Solomon Islands and the Faroe Islands, dolphins and other small whales (such as porpoises and pilot whales) are hunted and killed inhumanely to supply aquariums and for their meat. Over a million have been killed in hunts in the past 70 years in Japan alone.
Taiji

International bodies such as the International Whaling Commission (IWC) provide some protection for large whales (such as humpbacks), but do not regulate "small type" whaling (dolphins are in fact small whales). This means that there is no international policeman to prevent countries killing an unlimited number of small whales.

In Japan, where the largest hunts occur, thousands are slaughtered each year. Many of these - up to 16,000 annually in recent years - are porpoises killed at sea by harpoons along Japan's northern coast.

The largest hunts currently taking place, on which AFD's campaigns are initially focussed, are in the coastal town of Taiji, where around 1,500 dolphins and pilot whales are killed annually. Although they are not as well known, the Taiji hunts actually kill many more whales (including dolphins) than Japan's Antarctic whaling programme.