Marine welfare charities are streaming videos of hundreds of dolphins being tortured in Taiji, Wakayama by Japanese hunters.

The charities have taken the cause to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness about such horrific practises in Japan which harm marine life.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society- a non-profit, marine conservation organisation- has been involved in a 11-year-long battle with the Japanese government over illegal whaling. The organisation currently has two ships in the ocean chasing Japanese whaling ships.

The Sea Shepherds Cove Guardians campaign on Facebook page has 370,433 likes, however, its Live videos have reached around 10 million users in the last seven days.

Watch the video here:

Dolphins are extremely intelligent animals and are even capable of communication with each others like humans. Researchers state that dolphins have a "highly developed spoken language" which is very similar to human communication. They swim in groups call pods which is their family and research states that they take care of each other in the group, including the elderly.

Japan follows the controversial practise of whaling which involves actively hunting and killing the endangered species. Even though the country has faced severe criticisms from international organisations and countries for resuming the practice, the Japanese government defends the torturous killing of whales as a part of Japanese culture.

Despite commercial whaling and the trade in whale products banned in most countries, Japan, Norway and Iceland, indulge in whaling and kill 2,000 whales between them each year and also continue to trade in whale products.