A heartbreaking video of a dolphin mother desperately trying to wrestle her calf back from underwater hunters has emerged. The footage, shot close to Taiji in Japan, shows poachers trying to prise a baby dolphin from its family.

Five divers can be seen grabbing the infant dolphin and jerking it towards a boat where it is eventually hauled into a net. Throughout their sickening heist, a larger dolphin, presumed to be the mother, swims alongside them and tries to free the baby.

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Other dolphins try to help the mother, thrashing their tails at the divers. But the humans are too strong: they rip the terrified calf from its heartbroken family.

Activists allege that the stolen baby will be sold to an aquarium along with several others from a superpod of 300 that were trapped off Japanese coast The incident was filmed by Liz Carter, a volunteer with Blue Cove Days. Carter can be heard sobbing behind the camera as she films the ordeal.

Carter said: "One hundred dolphins were stolen, some died from the process. Juveniles ripped from their mothers ... [and] the mother and child are desperately trying to stay together.

"They're destined for marine parks and aquariums. The price of a ticket and a day trip out to a marine park isn't worth this."