LOS ANGELES, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- About 100 people demonstrated outside the Japanese consulate in Los Angeles, protesting Japan's annual slaughter of dolphins, authorities said.
Some demonstrators at the Thursday gathering carried signs with photos of bloodied dolphin bodies and others waved inflatable blue plastic dolphins, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Security guards kept the protesters out of the downtown high-rise building where the consulate is located.
The protest, called International Save Japan Dolphins Day, also sought to call attention to unsafe levels of mercury found in dolphin meat.
Joy Cernac, 26, of Santa Monica, said she was protesting against the Japanese government for allowing the killings and for permitting the sale of the meat.
Widespread public attention was brought to the annual slaughter by the award-winning documentary "The Cove."
Consular officials issued a statement late Thursday urging "that the most important thing is to recognize … national and cultural differences and to have a mutual understanding of each other," the Times reported.
In Japan, the statement said, dolphins "are regarded as naturally reproduced marine resources."
As such, it said, "the Japanese government will continue to authorize the use of dolphins at a sustainable level."
