Protesters gathered on the corner of Lane Avenue and High Street outside a Shell gas station on Monday to raise awareness about dolphin killings, an organizer said.

A group of protesters gather on the corner of Lane Avenue and High Street near OSU campus Sept. 1 to raise awareness about dolphin killings in Japan. Credit: Mark Batke / Photo editor

A group of protesters gather on the corner of Lane Avenue and High Street near OSU campus Sept. 1 to raise awareness about dolphin killings in Japan.
Credit: Mark Batke / Photo editor

Dolphin hunting season officially started Monday at Taiji, Japan. Fishermen herd hundreds of dolphins into a small cove, attack them with knives, separate the “pretty” ones out to sell to aquariums and kill the rest, event organizer and Columbus resident Cindy Ford said.

“(The fishermen) say it’s humane, but it’s not,” she said.

Many of the protests happening around this issue are taking place around Japanese embassies in the U.S., but Ford said her group wanted to raise awareness about the issue in a busy area.

“This is a high traffic area, and what better place to do this than Ohio State?” she said.

She added the protesters were community members who needed a central place to locate.

Some students who passed the protesters weren’t sure what the protesters were referring to in their demonstration.

“I don’t get what they’re doing. It’s something with dolphins,” said Jory Lombardi, a fourth-year in earth science.

His friend Gino DiMarzio, a fourth-year in marketing, said the two didn’t pay much attention.

“We saw what they were doing, but we didn’t think much about it,” he said.

Taiji mayor Kazutaka Sangen told reporters in January he thinks the fishermen’s actions are justified, according to a CNN article.

“We have fishermen in our community and they are exercising their fishing rights,” he said. “We feel that we need to protect our residents against the criticisms.”