If you think the Discovery Channel’s “Whale Wars” was hard to watch, its new miniseries “Blood Dolphins” on Animal Planet is heart-wrenching and, at times, unbearable. The first of three episodes debuted Aug. 27, and repeats Sept. 3 at 9 p.m.

In “Blood Dolphins,” Ric O’Barry, who made the Academy Award-winning documentary, “The Cove,” revisits Taiji, Japan, for the island’s open season on dolphins, which starts every year on Sept. 1. O’Barry refers to this hunting as a “Dante’s Inferno for dolphins.”  Each year hundreds of dolphins are herded in a bay then slaughtered for their meat. Only a handful are sold to aquariums. By the end of the year, about 20,000 dolphins are killed.

O’Barry and his son, Lincoln, filmed the carnage over a few years to escape detection by angry fisherman and undoubtedly to avoid ending up like the dolphins themselves. Dolphin and whale activists have received many threats of violence.

I had no idea this went on. Why kill an animal whose instinct is to protect human life? Any number of mammals would just as soon fill their bellies with us and drag us off to their young. Its tragically ironic considering the thousands of lives dolphins have saved. To survivors, they are more than human-like. They are angels. Really.

A few seconds into the “Blood Dolphins” trailer, I had to turn away. Though I couldn’t see. I could hear. The sounds of harpoons puncturing dolphin flesh struck me to the core. I had to man up and look. Calfs cling to their mother and hopelessly fight for survival in waters already thick with dolphin blood. The fishermen know. We know. One way or another, the only way out is in one of their nets. The feeling of helplessness is overwhelming.

Nevertheless, the fishing industry is a staple in Japan’s economy. And the Japanese are pissed. Dolphins and whales to them are like cows to us. Just look at the fisherman spearing these mammals. There is no hate in their actions. Its their livelihood. To them, it’s just a job.