Photos of Tajii’s firstdolphin catch of the 2009 season.The Guardian delivers a particularly graphic description of the 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales taken in the first hunt of the season in Taiji, Japan.

The hunt goes on for about six months, in which Taiji townfolk will catch about 2,300 of Japan’s annual quote of 20,000 dolphins.

In a typical hunt the fishermen pursue pods of dolphins across open seas, banging metal poles together beneath the water to confuse their hypersensitive sonar. The exhausted animals are driven into a large cove sealed off by nets to stop them escaping and dragged backwards into secluded inlets the following morning to be butchered with knives and spears. They are then loaded on to boats and taken to the quayside to be cut up in a warehouse, the fishermen’s work hidden from the outside by heavy shutters.

In the international hot seat of the documentary movie “The Cove”, and its blistering expose of dolphin and whale slaughter, Taiji officials said that all the pilot whales caught on the first expedition had been slaughtered; that half the bottlenose dolphins would be sold to acquariums and the remainder set free.

With cries of “We did it!” press reports don’t seem anchored in the fact that this hunt goes on for months, and the killing is far from over.