A CLITHEROE mum is travelling thousands of miles to help put a stop to the plight of dolphins across the world.

Julie Watson, 45, a swimming teacher at Ribblesdale pool, is flying to Taiji in Japan for two weeks to volunteer as a Cove Monitor for Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project.

Taiji is a small fishing village where around 100 fishermen hunt dolphins between September and March each year.

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The non-profit organisation has been visiting the cove for 13 years in an attempt to bring the hunts to the worlds attention.

The fishermen find ‘pods’ of dolphins and drive them into a small cove where they are either taken to be sold into the captive industry or killed.

The ‘drive hunts’ supply dolphins to the captive industry in many parts of the world. Mrs Watson said she has been a follower of the project for a long time and has attended protests outside the Japanese embassy in London, but felt she needed to do more.

She said: “No animal should be held captive to perform for the entertainment, profit and greed of humans.

“Dolphins are highly intelligent, social creatures and in the wild they can swim up to 50 miles a day.

“For them to be confined to a life in a tank performing for an audience is extremely cruel and in this day and age unnecessary.

“Dolphins in captivity bare no resemblance to a dolphin in the wild, they are merely clowns performing tricks in order to be rewarded with dead fish, if they don’t perform they don’t eat.”

A fisherman can make around £28,000 for a live dolphin and trained dolphins can be sold for up to £98,000. Dolphin meat can be bought for £300 for a whole carcase.

The mum-of-two has been passionate about dolphins since she bought her first book about them in primary school.

She said: “I’ve always refused to go and see them in captivity and didn’t see a dolphin for the first time till I went on holiday last year and saw them in the wild.

“To see these creatures, to look into their eyes knowing they have been taken from their families and will never swim free again is almost too much to bear.

“Dolphins do not cope well with captivity and many die from the stress, they are quite literally dying for your entertainment.

“Some people dream of swimming with dolphins, a dolphins’ dream is to swim free with its’ family.”

Julie will be flying out to Taiji on Wednesday November 4.

For more information on the project, visit dolphinproject.net or visit gofundme.com/t84c5wcw