Heartbreaking footage has emerged of a pod of dolphins being driven into a cove then slaughtered in Japan.

Video recorded near the town of Taiji, around 75 miles south of Osaka, shows the waters run red as a team of divers and fishermen kill 32 striped dolphins in a grim spectacle that takes hours to finish.

In a vain attempt to hide what they are doing, the hunters use canopies suspended over the cove, but at least one badly injured animal broke out into the open where it was captured bleeding heavily on drone cameras.

The video was captured by Dolphin Project, which campaigns to end the hunts, in February this year.

Read more HERE