If they were an ugly animal, no one would care. Just like no one bats an eye lid when I say I hunt feral pigs, yet people tell me I'm terrible if I say I hunt cute deer.The Japanese people have been hunting dolphins there for centuries, there are still dolphins there for them to hunt....what does that tell you?
Predators control prey population, that's natures way, we tend to forget man is part of nature and a predator.

Be aware of the power of words.

"Feral" pigs. The connotation there is that it's a wild animal which could be dangerous. A feral animal would attack.

"Cute" deer. Well, why would you hunt something if it's cute?

The generalization that "Japanese people have been hunting dolphins for centuries" is erroneous and based on false assumptions.

Feral pigs are wild , dangerous and do indeed attack and can do serious damage, even kill.They are in plague proportions in my country and destroying huge amounts of crops and even killing new born lambs.
Why hunt something cute? To eat it. That lamb on your plate was pretty cute at one time too Personally I'd rather eat a wild harvested animal than a farm bred, steroid/chemical filled beast.
People all around the world have been eating dolphins, dugongs,seals, whales and anything else nature provides ever since we learned how to catch them.
There is nothing "dark " about it unless you grew up in a "food comes in plastic wrappers" society but let's leave it at that as this site is about Japan.

Here is a real thread.
Sorry about the spamming Chinese assholes, we are dealing with them now.