Taiji dolphin drive hunt

33°35′58″N 135°56′47″E / 33.599329°N 135.946498°E / 33.599329; 135.946498 The Taiji dolphin drive hunt is based on driving dolphins and other small cetaceans into a small bay where they can be killed or captured for their meat and for sale to dolphinariums. The new primary killing method is done by cutting the spinal cord of the dolphin, a method that claims to decrease the mammal's time to death. Taiji has a long connection to whaling in Japan. The 2009 documentary film The Cove drew international attention to the hunt. Taiji is the only town in Japan where drive hunting still takes place on a large scale.

The number of dolphins available for catch in FY2023 set by the Fisheries Agency was 10,920 for Japan as a whole, and the number of dolphins available for catch allocated to the Taiji dolphin drive hunt was 1824. Of these, the actual number of dolphins caught in Japan as a whole was 614, compared to 492 in the Taiji dolphin hunt. The largest quota for dolphin hunting in Japan is the harpooning of Dall's porpoise and True's porpoise in Iwate Prefecture, where 3313 Dall's porpoises and 4336 True's porpoises were authorized to be caught in FY2023. However, only 109 True's porpoises were actually caught.

A majority of international concern is on the hunting method, which is viewed as inhumane. An article by National Geographic refers to The Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums' decision to no longer support the Taiji hunt. In 2015, it was announced that there would be a ban in the buying and selling of dolphins through the means of this hunt.