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The Taiji Nightmare Continues
Background: During the 1960s, Richard O’Barry made a living capturing and training dolphins, including the five dolphins that were used in the American TV-series Flipper about a dolphin of the same name. As a former dolphin trainer, he has encountered several cases of animal cruelty. The dolphin capture in Taiji, however, stands out as the cruelest thing he has witnessed during his more than 40 years of working with dolphins.
For the past several years, Ric and his wife Helene O’Barry have travelled to Taiji with the support of the Save Japan Dolphins Campaign in an effort to document the annual dolphin slaughter that occurs as part of Taiji’s annual drive fishery.
Ric and Helene O’Barry are filing these reports for the Save Taiji Dolphins Campaign on behalf of Earth Island Institute, Elsa Nature Conservancy of Japan, Animal Welfare Institute and In Defense of Animals.
Taiji: The new Minamata
by Richard O’Barry
Standing on the beach at Taiji, Japan, about six hours west of Tokyo down a winding road in the steep mountains of Wakayama Prefecture, you see a beautiful little cove where picturesque fishermen have for generations indulged in the cold-blooded atrocity of slaughtering dolphins by the thousands.
When a Save Japan Dolphins Team got involved in what was going on awhile back and launched a world-wide expose of this honored practice, we were outraged not only by the bloody horror of it but also by the protective silence of government and media alike—all this quite contrary to Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution, which prohibits the suppression of news.
You don’t need a degree in explaining things to understand how all this got started, the fishermen rounding up dolphins, slaughtering them with their long, sharp knives. It’s a business to them and it’s been going on for hundreds of years, fishermen selling the rich, red meat mostly to their Japanese neighbors.
But there is much new information which is ignored by the government of Japan. The hunts today would not be profitable if the global aquarium industry and “swim-with-dolphins” tourist programs were not subsidizing the dolphin killers by paying enormous sums for a handful of dolphins for captivity. And the government is helping subsidize the meat trade by using dolphin meat for school lunch programs, since it is not popular on the open market.
It might seem that exposing this to the light of day would in itself cause it to disappear. But not in Japan. When we went to authorities for an explanation, they turned a deaf ear to us. It was as if nobody cared. We were told that this was part of Japan’s tradition, its culture. Mayor S. Hamanaka of Taiji proudly announced that he and his fellow citizens are a whaling people, and they explain it like this: “You kill cows and sheep, and we kill dolphins and whales. You don’t understand us.”
But I think we do, and so our work began. Then almost immediately something that happened in Japan even more terrible came to the surface, the puzzling events of 50 years ago in Minamata Bay, where what was called Minamata disease broke out. It began simply enough. Citizens first noticed their cats wobbling around on the docks. The cats all went into conniption fits and keeled over into the water.
It was a village mystery and experts were called in. After a series of tests on the cats’ bodies, scientists determined that It was mercury poisoning, the result of many decades of dumping mercury-contaminated waste by a chemical company on Kyushu Island that spilled into the bay with other concentrated pollutants already there, including PCBs and heavy metals. But this was not just a disease of cats. It struck humans, too, as more than 100 local citizens, especially children, came down with Minamata disease, which had all the classic effects of mercury poisoning in the ensuing months. They got it by eating seafood and shell fish in the bay. Like the Mad Hatters’ Disease, this Japanese malady attacks the nervous system, causing the body to twitch and jerk around uncontrollably, affecting speech and often resulting in death. Pregnant women’s babies are particularly susceptible to mercury poisoning, often resulting in severe disabilities for their children. An estimated 10,000 persons were contaminated by mercury, more than 3,000 of whom died. Eating fish and shell fish from the area was banned.
This may have begun as a local contamination, but now it’s everywhere. And now not only are all the oceans of the world contaminated like Minamata Bay, every ocean on earth is full of it and practically to the same degree. Mercury in the bodies of dolphins in Taiji today is higher than it was in the fish when Minamata disease first struck. Recent independent studies at supermarkets in several areas of Japan show that the meat of dolphins and other whales range from about four times higher to nearly 36 times higher than the Health Ministry’s safe level of 0.04ppm (parts per million). There are only a small group of whalers in Taiji doing all this, and they feel betrayed because they are slowly realizing that their work product has become worthless. It is no longer fit for human consumption, nor for pet food, nor even fertilizer. All they can do with it now is treat it and dispose of it as toxic waste. But they don't do that. They continue to sell the tainted dolphin meat and export it to the unsuspecting consumers in other parts of Japan. Taiji has become the new Minamata.
The parts-per-million numbers tell the story. For general safety, 0.03ppm shouldn’t be exceeded. In Japan the number is 0.04ppm. But it doesn’t matter. Recent studies of meat from dolphin and other whales exceeds that by an average of about 13.5 times, sometimes ranging to more than 35 times. This is true of tuna, too. All large predatory fish or sea mammals are suspect. This is easy to explain. These predatory sea creatures eat smaller fish. The small fish often themselves feed on things in the ocean that are loaded with mercury and other contaminants. When the dolphin or tuna eats hundreds or more of these small fish every day, the mercury and other poisons in the small fish are stored in the large fish.
And does that drive the large fish crazy as it does the cats of Minamata Bay and the thousands of people who came down with the Minamata disease after eating the tuna or dolphin? Of course it does.
Most of the Japanese people know nothing about all this because the government of Japan is protecting its precious whaling tradition and an impressive portion of Japan’s economy that is based on whaling and especially commercial fishing, protecting all this from bad publicity by imposing a lid of silence on news about mercury poisoning threatening their nation. The only newspaper that has written about it in Japan is the Japan Times. But that newspaper is published only in the English language, and few Japanese read it.
So what happens next to the people of Japan? And what happens also to the rest of the people on earth who know nothing about what is going on in the sea?
We’ll know soon.
** The Oceanic Preservation Society has produced a documentary film about this issue. Tentatively titled The Rising, it will be in theaters in late summer of 2008. The film is expected to do what the Japanese media failed to do: inform the Japanese public about mercury posioning. Go to the web page for the film: www.opsociety.org.
Paddle-Out for the Taiji Dolphins: Surfers Confront the Dolphin Killers
By Ric & Helene O’Barry
November 1, 2007
Worldwide publiclty is going out all over the planet, bringing the truth about the Taiji Dolphin slaughter to millions of people.
20 surfers, two actresses, and one beautiful mermaid converged on the remote Japanese fishing village of Taiji to pray for the world's original surfers: the dolphins.
Dave Rastovich, Hannah Mermaid, Hayden Panetteire of the popular TV show Heroes, and Karina Petroni were just some of the participants of the "paddle out". A paddle out is a surfers ritual/ceremony which takes place when a fellow surfer dies. Everyone paddles out past the surf line and forms a circle holding hands while praying for the departed. It's a beautiful thing to watch.
The peaceful event shocked the Taiji dolphin hunters who were surprised and stunned by the unusual scene. They were not happy to see the international delegation of surfers take over their secret dolphin cove for the day.
Police from Taiji, Shingu City, and Ki i Katsuura showed up to keep the peace. Afterwards, Hannah Mermaid thanked the law enforcement officers for being fair to both sides while doing their duty.
Event organizer, Dave Rastovich of the international organization, Surfers for Cetaceans asked the participants to pray for the hundreds of thousands of dead dolphins which were killed in the most brutal way imaginable in this very cove. The surfers each carried a flower into the killing cove to offer up to the departed dolphins.
Hayden Panettiere, actress, said she could feel the spirits of the dolphins that have been driven into the killing cove for the last 400 hundred years. USA women's champion surfer, Karina Petroni said the paddle out was one of the most important events of her life. Japanese surfers also participated in the ritual alongside the Westerners.
The next day several surfers, including David, Hayden and Karina, paddled out towards a group of pilot whales that had been trapped in nets and were slated for slaughter. But, in a dramatic incident caught on camera, dolphin killers confronted the surfers, pushing them back using the dangerous prop of their outboard motor and boat hooks. The footage of Hayden crying on the beach, knowing the pilot whales were doomed, shows the brutality and the unbelievable cruelty of this hunt to the world. It is strong stuff!
The Oceanic Preservation Society was on hand to film the scene for a documentary film. The movie will be in theaters in the summer of 2008. We will be having much more to say about this documentary soon.
Ric O'Barry, trainer of the TV star "Flipper" and representative of Save Japan Dolphins Coalition was moved to tears by the event. "This was the first time in history that Japanese and Westerners have come together to bring attention to the dolphins of Taiji," he said. O'Barry is marine mammal specialist for Earth Island Institute. His efforts to abolish the annual dolphin slaughter is featured in the upcoming film.
To learn more about this urgent issue and what you can do to get involved, visit: www.SurfersForCetaceans.com and www.SaveJapanDolphins.org.
To see video of the confrontation, go to: news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1291049,00.html, Sky News; and: www.etonline.com/news/2007/11/55381/index.html, Entertainment Tonight Online.
Taiji September 14, 2007
by Ric O’Barry
Sayonara Nigel
Each time we return to Taiji, the dolphin hunters are a little bit more angry than the last time we saw them. This is because we are exposing their crimes against nature on a huge international scale. We are also exposing the fact that the dolphin meat they sell to the Japanese public is poison. Some of the Taiji Town councilmen who monitor our website didn't believe our blogs about the dolphin meat containing high levels of mercury. They tested the meat themselves. “The results were shocking,” they reported to the Japan Times and other international media outlets at a Tokyo press conference on September 3, 2007.
Of course the dolphin hunters are angry. They now see the demand for contaminated dolphin meat being in jeopardy – a measure of our success.
The people of Taiji Town and elsewhere in Japan are finally learning the truth. They know the dolphin meat from Taiji is contaminated with high levels of mercury. This news does not make the Taiji dolphin hunters very happy, and they are reacting with violence. They associate this international exposure with Westerners
Nigel Barker is a Westerner – an Australian resident living in Taiji with his lovely Japanese wife and their infant child. They are not animal rights activists. From time to time Nigel will share information with us about what’s going on in Taiji, such as if the 13 drive boats are in port or have gone out to sea. He'll let us know if they drove dolphins into the killing cove and how many. He is very careful not to break the rules imposed by the Taiji dolphin hunters, as he loves Japan and wants to stay on the right side of the law. Nigel is a gentle soul who is very sensitive to Japanese tradition and culture. He is not campaigning against the dolphin slaughter – he just happens to be living in a place where it’s taking place.
We are now being told that Nigel was physically attacked yesterday by the owner of Taiji’s Gyokyo supermarket, Kaiyoshi Humi. Mr. Humi tried to take Nigel’s camera away from him. Humi’s store continues to sell mercury tainted dolphin meat in spite of the Kan Nyu Dai 99 Ban, established July 23, 1973, under which a warning was issued to prefectural and local governments by the then director of the environmental and health agency, stating that mercury in seafood must not exceed the advisory level of 0.4 ppm. Makoto Tanaka, who is assistant director of inspection and safety for health ministry, does not enforce the ban. Neither does Masahiko Tamaki, the so- called enforcement officer in the Wakayama Prefecture’s health section.
I don't know Mr. Humi very well, but I do know Kazutoyo Simetani. His uncle reportedly owns the Simetani Company in Taiji. That’s the wholesaler that sells the toxic dolphin meat to retailers throughout Japan.
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| Private Space. Boyd Harnell photo. |
Since we never knew any of the Taiji dolphin hunters by their proper names, we gave them nick-names. We call Kazutoyo Simetani “Private Space” because he always gets in our face, nose to nose and toes to toes with his sign that reads “NO PHOTOS!” and screams at the top of his lungs: PRIVATE SPACE! PRIVATE SPACE! Apparently, these are the only words he knows in English. What he really means of course is, “Private Property.” Whenever we show up at the killing cove or the slaughter house, he is there with his sign and small video camera. He stalks us all day long even though stalking is a serious crime in Japan. We have video documentation of Private Space chasing us through the streets of Taiji and all the way north to Shingu in his white Nissan Skyline. In my opinion, he’s the most zealous of the Taiji dolphin hunters and thus the most dangerous.
Nigel’s wife was also threatened by five dolphin hunters as she was walking on the side of the road with her baby yesterday. The five men shouted obscenities and threatened her.
Nigel tried to file a formal complaint against Kaiyoshi Humi, but the Shingu police officer, Kazuhiro Sasaki, told Nigel that the incident was his own fault. He said Nigel should not have been in the area of the capture cove where he was taking photos of dead pilot whales being hauled out of the killing cove, despite telling Nigel a few days earlier he was legally able to go into the area where he was filming. Sasaki refused to charge Humi with assault, and instead blamed Nigel for instigating the attack and said he should have stayed away from the cove and remained at home.
Nigel is leaving Japan and returning to Australia soon. It’s just not safe in Taiji any more.
Taiji February 7, 2007
by Ric and Helene O'Barry
The dolphin hunters drove 4 to 6 dolphins toward the shore early in the day. They were unable to chase them into the killing cove, so they ran a large net around the dolphins and penned them up near the shoreline, not far from the Taiji Twelve. Then they all went home.
Taiji February 6, 2007
by Ric and Helene O'Barry
The Save Japan Dolphins Coalition is back on the ground in Taiji, Japan. The dolphin hunters appear to be extremely angry, even more so than we have ever seen them in the past. Every action has a reaction. Our success in getting the Okuwa Supermarket chain to ban the sale of dolphin meat must cost the dolphin hunters a great deal of money. No doubt this upsets them greatly. Adding to their frustration is the fact that we are currently working to block the export of the Taiji Twelve to the Dominican Republic.
Apparently the dolphin hunters have seen our recent dolphin capture footage, which is running on YouTube and is being viewed by thousands of people worldwide every day. They have reacted by putting 24 new signs up in the same area from where we shot the compelling video. To further prevent anyone from witnessing the dolphin massacres, they have erected a wall that prevents anyone from entering the tsunami mountain – a favorite location for observing the victim dolphins who are driven into the secret killing cove.
There was a time when the dolphin slaughter took place in the open. Those days are gone forever. As the international exposure grows larger and larger, the circle is getting smaller and smaller for these few dolphin hunters in Taiji. It is only a matter of time before their anachronistic and barbaric practice is abolished forever, and they know it: They once told us that if the world ever learned about the annual dolphin slaughter, they would have to stop it. And the world is finally learning about it.
The 13 dolphin drive boats went out to sea at daybreak today. They did not find any dolphins. It is getting late in the killing season and the dolphins are thinning out. The pickings are – fortunately – slim.