Sep 12, 2016
Well that’s a relief! Taiji's annual dolphin hunt off to a smooth start
Well, here’s the news we’ve all been waiting for; media outlets reported Friday that Taiji’s annual dolphin hunt got underway with few signs of trouble, and the first batch of dolphins ‘caught' (and killed).
According to reports, the Wakayama town’s fishermen caught 20 dolphins, to the relief of a senior official with the local fisheries association who is quoted as saying, “We finally caught them. I’m relieved,”.
Needless to say, not everyone shares the sentiment. Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, who live stream footage of the hunts on their webpage, said of the day’s hunt,
"In an eerie resemblance of last year, almost to the day, the dolphins’ luck ran out when a pod of Risso’s were driven into the cove and slaughtered."
Dolphin Project reports of some 12 boats heading out from Taiji at 5:30 am (September 9, 2016), returning over three hours later in formation to push a pod of Risso dolphins into the cove. The killing was competed by 12:00 pm.
Taijji’s cove has been the scene of many a confrontation by activists and local fishermen, particularly since it became the subject of the award-winning documentary The Cove in 2009. This year, however, reports largely convey things to have proceeded smoothly during the season’s first hunt.
However, since Friday, Dolphin Project have put this breaking news on their top page,
BREAKING: US CITIZEN HARASSED BY JAPANESE NATIONALISTS AT THE COVE
The supporting text tells of an foreign monitor for Dolphin Project, in Taiji documenting the season’s hunt, to have been confronted and intimidated by right-wing nationalists for taking pictures of the town's cove. It seems the monitor was in their car when local police intervened, and advised them (presumably for their own safety) to remain in the vehicle. Images on Dolphin Project’s website show a couple of charming characters in pretend military fatigues, one of them giving the camera a one-fingered salute (is that how they did it in the old army days?).
Dolphin Project say that the monitor is now safe and well, and plans to press charges against the suspects.
The dolphin hunt at Taiji, known as ‘drive hunting’, is often sited as a major source of income for the town. Whalers take small boats out to sea in the hopes of spotting a pod of dolphins. Once spotted, metal poles are lowered into the sea. By banging on the poles, whalers generate noise to confuse the pod and ‘drive’ them into ‘The Cove’, which is then closed off with nets to prevent escape.
According to Ceta-Base, a database of ‘captive cetaceans’, the quota for the 2016/2017 season is 1,820 (across seven species). This season started on September 1st. The hunt at Taiji is authorized by the Governor of Wakayama Prefecture through to Spring 2017.
Not all of those mammals driven into Taiji’s cove are killed. According to the same source, out of a quota of 1,873 for the 2015/2016 season, 902 dolphins were caught of which 652 were killed, 133 released, and 117 taken as ‘live capture’. In regards to those ‘live captures’, in 2015 the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) suspended Japanese members from the group due to their association with Taiji. As a result, the Japanese arm of WAZA (JAZA) voted to stop buying live dolphin from Taiji’s hunts so as it could remain with the governing body. Sounds like sense prevailed then, although not all of Japan’s members voted in the same way.
Some have claimed the landmark decision to be the beginning of the end for the Taiji hunts, although a quota of over 1,800 doesn’t seem to suggest an end is in sight. What is clear, is that the market for live dolphin is far more profitable than the market for that which has been killed and sold off as food. Which begs the question, given that the vast majority of captures at Taiji end up dead, who’s eating this stuff, and how do they know where to get it?
In trying to find a local eatery with the heart to put dolphin on the menu, we stumbled across this 2013 headline from, err, reliable news source Mail Online,
Swim with the dishes: Japan to open water park where you can swim with dolphins… while eating dolphin MEAT
The article shouts about Taiji’s plans to basically turn the whole town into a waterpark-based orgy of hunting, viewing, and eating. Needless to say, not even Taiji’s staunchest of supporters have had the front to see this through to completion, or even get it off the drawing board, although the town does have the Taiji Whale Museum, where you can see those ‘live captures’ (the museum withdrew its membership with JAZA in 2015).
It’s those same supporters however, that voice Taiji’s right to continue the drive hunts as part of long-held town tradition, and a base for people’s livelihoods.
Indeed, our cries of outrage are surely undermined by the average person’s tacit support for the horrendous manner in which so much meat arrives on our plates for the eating. How many times have we heard Sir Paul McCartney tell us ‘If slaughterhouses had glass walls … ’, and yet so many of us do nothing about it. What’s the difference?, the military-fatigued Taiji right winger might shout? Well, the difference here, comes the retort, is that we (yes, we) are in a stronger position to do something about this. Campaigners claim they have the momentum, and even from the outside, with so much attention now on Taiji, it seems hard to believe that the ‘drive hunts’ have much of a future.
For now though, the 2016/2017 season is underway, and you can follow it, see the stats, and watch it live.
How do you feel about the drive hunting at Taiji? Have your say. Leave your comments below.
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