Animal activists around the world have demanded Japan end its annual dolphin hunt during their rallies outside Japanese embassies.

About 20 people gathered outside the Japanese Embassy in Sydney, Australia. They chanted slogans and held placards urging Japan to stop the killing of dolphins. Elsewhere in the Philippines, dozens of activists demonstrated outside the Japanese Embassy in Manila.

Animal welfare groups and dolphin lovers around the world observe "International Japan Dolphin Day" every September 1st. The date marks the start of the hunting season in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji.

Japan has long maintained that eating dolphin and whale meat is an ancient tradition, and conducts annual hunts under the name of research whaling.

David Hempton, protest organizer, said, "It's a really brutal trade that no other developed country in the world participates in. To kill two thousand dolphins and be the center of the export business of the dolphin trade around the world is something that really is last century."

Trixie Concepcion, regional director of Earth Island Institute, said, "All scientists, and even the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums agree that the capture of dolphins in Japan is very very in humane and very cruel. So I wonder, we in the Philippines, we actually wonder, why the Philippine government is allowing the importation of dolphins from Japan into the Philippines."