The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 5 | Issue 1 | Jan 02, 2007

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Taiji: Japan's Dolphin Cull and the Clash of Cultures

David McNeill

Taiji: Japan's Dolphin Cull and the Clash ofCultures

By David McNeill

Dolphin and humpback whale are just two ofthe items on the menu in the fishing village ofTaiji where the locals battle Hollywoodenvironmentalists and ‘racist’ foreigners. DavidMcNeill mingles with the suspicious locals andwitnesses a clash of cultures. Below, too, seehis interview with dolphin trainer turnedactivist Ric O'Barry.

In Taiji, the fishermen say that dolphin tasteslike venison or beef. But eaten raw with a dabof ginger and soy sauce, the glistening darkflesh resembles liver with a coppery aftertastethat lingers on the roof of the mouth long afteryou’ve chewed it past your protesting tastebuds. The ripe, tangy smell stays longer. “I hatecutting up dolphin,” says Motohata Toshihiro,who runs a nearby whale-meat shop. “The stinkstays on you for days, even after several baths.”

Entrance to Taiji

Dolphin-hunting season has arrived again in

this sleepy harbor town at the tip of the Kiipeninsula south of Kyoto. Since October,perhaps 2,000 small whales and striped,bottlenose, spotted and risso’s dolphins havebeen slaughtered for meat that ends up on thetables of local homes and restaurants and invacuum-packed bags in supermarkets. By theend of March, 1,000 more will go the sameway, part of what is probably the largest annualcull of cetaceans – about 26,000 around coastalJapan according to environmentalists -- in theworld.

Six hours from Tokyo and accessible only via acoastal road that snakes through tunnels hewnfrom dense, pine-carpeted mountains, Taiji foryears escaped the prying eyes of animal rightsactivists, but the isolation has been abruptlyended by the Internet and the cheap rail pass.A steady trickle of foreign protestors – mostJapanese people know little about the tradition-- now arrives in the rusting town square tocross swords with local bureaucrats and the 26fishermen who run the hunt.

Long view of Taiji

As Taiji’s notoriety has grown, fueled by

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gruesome videos of the dolphin kill posted onYouTube and by celebrity criticism fromJoaquin Phoenix, Ted Danson and other high-profile environmentalists, tensions havesharpened. Protestors have repeatedly clashedwith the fishermen. Nets and boats have beensabotaged, activists arrested and severalenvironmental groups have been effectivelybanned from the town.

Foreigners now almost inevitably mean trouble,especially when they come with cameras; localsspeak w i th spec ia l venom o f a BBCdocumentary that they say depicted them asbarbarians. “One fisherman told me if thewhalers could kill me, they would,” says thebest-known protestor, Ric O’Barry, who oncetrained dolphins for the 1960’s TV series‘Flipper.’ “But I always try to stay on the rightside of the law. If I get arrested, I’m out of thisfight.”

Around Taiji and in the nearby towns of Kii-Katsuura and Shingu, whale meat has beeneaten for hundreds of years, claim localofficials. Restaurants and shops offer dolphinand whale sashimi and humpback bacon, alongwith tuna and shark-fin soup. A canteen next tothe Taiji Whale Museum, where traineddolphins and small whales perform tricks fortourists, sells Minke steak, sashimi and whalecutlets in curry sauce in a room decorated withposters of the 80 or so ‘cetaceans of the world’:whales, dolphins and porpoises.

According to local wholesaler Mizutani Ikuo,dolphin meat sells for about 2,000 yen (aboutUS$16) a kilo, cheaper than beef or whale.Unlike most Japanese children, who have noidea what whale tastes like, Taiji kids knowtheir cetaceans. “I don’t like the taste ofdolphin because it smells,” says 9-year-oldUtani Rui. “I prefer whale.” Inside the museum,out-of-towners are often stunned to learn of thelocal tradition. “I’m shocked,” says ShibuyaKeiko from Osaka. “I couldn’t imagine eatingdolphin. They’re too cute.”

Dolphin meat (iruka, left) and humpback whalein Taiji market

The hunts are notoriously brutal and bluetarpaulin sheets block the main viewing spotsoverlooking the cove where the killings takeplace to prevent picture-taking. Beyond thecove, a small fleet of boats surround a pod ofmigrating dolphins, lower metal poles into thesea and bang them to frighten the animals anddisrupt their sonar. Once the panicking,thrashing dolphins are herded into the narrowcove, the fishermen attack them with knives,turning the sea red before dragging them to aharbour-side warehouse for slaughter.

The fishermen, who consider dolphins just bigfish, like tuna, are bewildered that anyonewould find this cruel, dubbing the weekendprotestors ‘extremists.’ “If you walked into anAmerican slaughterhouse for cows it wouldn’tlook very pretty either,” says one, whoidentifies himself only as Kawasaki. “The killingis done in the open here so it looks worse thanit is.” Most are descended from families thathave been killing and eating the contents of thesea around Taiji for generations and rejectarguments that dolphins are ‘special.’ SaysKawasaki: “They’re food, like dogs for theChinese and Koreans.”

A 1 9 9 4 s t a t e m e n t[www.furcommission.com/resource/perspect3.h

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tm] by Taiji Mayor S. Hamanaka directlyaddressed environmentalists in making thecase for tradition and the legitimacy of thewhale hunt:

We believe we know more about our own sea inTaiji than anyone who lives hundreds orthousands of miles away from us. We alsobelieve we are more concerned with itsprotection and assume more responsibilitiesthan anybody else in the world. We are surethat the same view is shared by AlaskanEskimos, Faroese, Greenlanders, Icelanders,Norwegians, and Russians in Chukotka as well.We hope many environmentally concernedpeople in the industrialized nations willunderstand our views and trust us as rationaland humane people, and stop making whaling a"scape goat" of the environmental crusade andmaking inhumane attacks on whaling people.”

O’Barry claims, however, that he was told inprivate by town officials that tradition is not thereal reason for the hunts. “It’s pest-control;they’re over-fishing and want to kill thecompetition for the fish. That’s unacceptable.These animals don’t have Japanese passports,they belong to the world. They’re just trying toget around this town and these 26 guys.” Hecalls the town ‘schizophrenic.’ “It’s as pretty asa 1950s postcard and the people are sofriendly, but this secret genocide takes placeevery year.”

The schizophrenia is sharpest, say activists, inthe Taiji Whale Museum, where tickets for“whale-watching trips” in dolphin-shaped boatsare sold while the non-performing animalsbump up against each other in a tiny concretepool. Trainers here help sort the ‘best-looking’dolphins from the kill and train them for use incircuses and aquariums across Asia andEurope.

The Taiji Whale Museum

The museum recently made the world’s sciencepages when the fishermen handed over a raredolphin with an extra set of fins, possiblyproving that they once had legs and lived onland. But O’Barry says the story had a darkside. “The Japanese media didn’t report thatthis particular dolphin was taken away fromher mother by dolphin trainers. The mother’sthroat was slit and then she was butchered inthe Taiji slaughter house along with more than200 other bottlenose dolphins.”

The bitter controversy over what fishermen inTaiji and other Japanese ports take from thesea is salted with nationalism, one reason whythey are backed to the hilt by the Tokyogovernment. In a country that produces just 40percent of its own food, fisheries bureaucratsbristle at ‘emotional’ lectures from Westernenvironmentalists, and amid an intensifyingfight for marine resources, they are determinednot to yield to them. For some, cetaceans are aline in the sand. “If we lose on whales, whatwill happen next,” asks Nakamae Akira, DeputyDirector General of Japan’s Fisheries Agency.

‘Next’ means tuna, a staple of the Japanese dietin contrast to whale, which is a minor delicacynow eaten by a t iny proportion of thepopulation. Japan’s voracious appetite for tunashows no sign of abating: a report last

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December claimed that Japanese fishermenpoached a staggering 100,000 tons of thecoveted southern Bluefin tuna above quotabetween 1996 and 2005. The Taiji fishermendeny they are taking too much from the sea.“We would be cutting our own throats,” saysShimetani Kazutoyo, the sales manager of thedolphin hunters’ co-operative in Taiji. Thecooperative -- essentially a closed guild -- saysit rigidly controls fishing, limiting dolphinhunting to just 26 of the town’s 500-oddfishermen.

Taiji’s growing Internet fame has widened thecultural gulf between the town and the rest ofthe world, and most senior officials will nolonger talk to Western journalists. But the headof the local board of education, Kita Yoji, wholectures on whaling to schools and colleges,agrees to a brief meeting. Like many in thetown hall, he accuses Westerners of failing tounderstand or explain Japan’s culture to theirreaders and of inciting protestors. But he isguardedly polite until a question about thedangerously high mercury levels detected inwhales and dolphins sets him off. “Why pick onthose as reasons to stop eating them,” he asks,voice rising. “The whole environment ispoisoned. There is no point in talking to youbecause you don’t want to listen. That’s justracism,” he says, standing to terminate theinterview.

“It’s very difficult,” sighs a clerk in themuseum. “The town leaders are just so tired ofhaving to deal with this. They want it to goaway.” There seems little chance they’ll gettheir wish, despite an offer to fund theretirement of the dolphin hunters from a USenvironmental group. Few in the town took theoffer seriously, and the fishermen say theywould in any case reject it. “Why should wegive up our tradition on the orders of somebodyelse,” says Shimetani.

In a world wracked with wars, greed andenvironmental destruction, the fate of a few

thousand animals might seem small fry, butactivists say the plight of the dolphins isconnected to all three. “The dolphin hunt is asymbol of our utilitarian view of nature,” saysO’Barry. “That we can use and abuse the sea. Ihonestly believe when the world finds out aboutthis it will be abolished. It can’t possiblysurvive the light of day.”

Blue Voice, “Saving Dolphins and Whales.Protecting the Ocean provides podcast videoson the Taiji hunt.http://www.bluevoice.org/webfilms.shtml

This is an expanded version of an article thatappeared in The Independent on SaturdayJanuary 6, 2006. Published at Japan Focus onJanuary 6, 2006.

An Interview with Ric O'Barry

Ric O’ Barry is one of the world’s best knownenvironmentalists. A former US Navy diver, helater trained the five dolphins that played‘Flipper’ in the hit 1960’s TV series beforeturning against dolphin captivity in 1970. Hehas spent his life since as an animal rightscampaigner and much of the last decadefighting what he calls the ‘secret genocide’ ofdolphins in the Wakayama Pref. town of Taiji,where thousands of the animals are killed fromOctober – March every year.

O’Barry travels to the small port town severaltimes a year to film the annual dolphin-hunt fora coalit ion of environmental groups –www.SaveJapanDolphins.org. He claims he isdespised by the town office, trailed by goonsand harassed and threatened by whalers. “Onefisherman down there told me if the whalerscould kill me, they would,” he says. “I was kindof flattered. They call me ‘Samurai dolphinman,’ which shows that at least they respectme.”

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Oddly, the first time the 67-year-old visitedTaiji in 1975, he met the mayor and was giventhe keys to the town after leading a campaignagainst a US boycott of Japanese products ledby anti-whalers that he considered ‘racist.’ Hestill believes boycotts will not stop whaling.“Boycotts are completely useless because theJapanese people don’t even know about this.They are a blanket condemnation of theJapanese people, and dolphin hunt is led by just26 fishermen.”

O’Barry believes the dolphin-hunt only survivesbecause the Japanese media avoids reporting it.“This would not survive anywhere else in thefree world. It’s amazing to me that the mediaignores this. When you go there you’rephotographing a cover-up. They’re trying tokeep this a secret from the world.” He says theworld is ‘gradually waking up’ and hints at apossible UN initiative to stop the hunt. “Ihonestly believe when the world finds out aboutthis it will be abolished. It can’t possiblysurvive the light of day.”

What makes you so angry about this story?

That the Japanese people don’t know that thelargest slaughter of cetaceans in the world --36,000 a year -- is taking place in their ownwaters, at Taiji, Iwate and Futo; and they don’tknow that the Japanese people are hatedaround the world for this. The Japanese mediais to blame for this blackout. That’s a story in

itself. It’s very hard to get information on howmany they capture in Taiji, but it is probablyabout 2,300 dolphins.

Tell me about why you switched sides in1970.

I captured about 100 dolphins myself, back inthe 1960s, including the five that playedFlipper. I was the highest-paid animal trainer inthe world. If I wanted I could set up one ofthese dolphin training programs and make 3-4million dollars a year. I changed when Flipperdied in my arms from suicide. I use that wordwith some trepidation but I don’t know anotherword that describes self-induced asphyxiation.Dolphins and other whales are not automaticbreathers. Every breath that they take is aconscious effort, which is why they don’t sleep.If life becomes miserable, they just don’t takethe next breath. Flipper looked me in the eyeand stopped breathing.

In those days I was as ignorant as I could be.Now I am against captivity. It has no sociallyredeeming feature. It is not educational. Howcome I can’t find one person among themillions who have visited the 50 dolphinfacilities in Japan who is against this industry? Iorganize a worldwide protest outsideconsulates every year and the only city where Ican’t get a protest going is Tokyo. So what isthe value of having dolphins on display if itdoesn’t sensitize people? It is just casualamusement. It is a form of bad education thatserves to perpetuate our utilitarian relationshipwith nature.

Flipper was the best and the worst thing thatever happened to dolphins. It exposed theworld to dolphins but it also created thesecaptors and the desire to hug them and kissthem and love them to death. Dolphins hatecaptivity. You’ll see them in the Taiji WhaleMuseum with their head lying up against thetank, saying ‘how do I get out of here.’ Do I feelresponsibility? I have trouble sometimes

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sleeping at night. Guilt is not too strong a word.I’m not motivated by guilt, although I used tobe. Now this is who I am: I eat, sleep and livethis life and won’t stop this campaigning until Idraw my last breath.

You say there are two parts to this trade,right?

Yes, in Taiji they separate out the best-lookingdolphins and export them for use in circus acts,aquariums and so on to places like China, thePhilippines, perhaps Germany. We know thereare Germans down there hiding from thecameras. Those are worth about 100,000dollars a piece; in my day a dolphin was worth300-350 dollars. The rest are slaughtered andare worth about 600 dollars each.

The Fisheries Agency says that Japan is a verycrowded island that depends on the sea forfood. They get angry when they are lectured byWesterners.

Well, there is a way to harvest their food fromthe sea but they’re involved in over-fishing. Thedriftnets they use are a way of strip-mining theocean. This is why all fish stocks are expectedto collapse by 2047. It is not just Japan: all ofthe countries have been irresponsible. It isinternational corporate greed. I see the dolphinas a reference point and a symbol of ourrelationship with the sea, and look what we’redoing to them.

The truth is, Japan is a wealthy country andthey don’t need to eat dolphin meat. The realreason for this slaughter is they are over-fishing and want to kill the competition for thefish. It is pest control. That’s what they told mein a closed meeting. That’s unacceptable. Theseanimals are not owned by Japan; they don’thave Japanese passports, they belong to theworld. They’re just trying to get around thistown and these 26 guys.

If you go to the Tokyo zoo, the snake is given

more consideration in captivity than thedolphin. The snake is given some grass, andtree limbs to climb over. But the dolphin, whichis a sonic creature, is confined to a bareconcrete box. You wouldn’t even do it to asnake! The tanks in the Taiji museum are someof the smallest in the world. It is more stressfulfor dolphins in captivity than any other animalin the world.

You’ve met the whalers?

Oh yeah. I asked them if they were worriedabout mercury poisoning. Dolphin meatcontains very high levels of mercury. But theysaid: ‘The meat is safe and the governmentwouldn’t lie.’ So I asked them, what aboutMinamata? Governments protect corporations,not people. The whalers of course know notwhat they do, but the trainers do: thatinfuriates me. They know they are killinganimals that are self-aware. They give themnames, they look into the eyes of the dolphinsand tell lies that they are helping to educatethe public. Then they look on as they areslaughtered.

I don’t sit at the right hand side of godcriticizing what everybody does, but if you’reasking me if it’s ok for Japan to export itspoison to China and elsewhere, when theyknow it is poisoned, I think it is morallyrepugnant and ethically untenable; these arecrimes against humanity. They put this stuff onthe shelves where pregnant women andchildren can eat it. Go to the hospitals aroundTaiji and you’ll find evidence of mercury-poisoned people.

Of course, many Japanese would say, well, ‘whycan’t we kill dolphins? What is special aboutthem?’ People around the world eat cows,lambs and small birds; some also eat dogs.

Well, I stop them there because most peopleeat animals in captivity. They’re mixingdomesticated animals with wildlife.

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That doesn’t really make much difference tothe animals though, does it? They don’t knowthey’re wildlife.

Yes, that’s true but people in the animalcommunity are working on this stuff too. I’mnot saying it is right to kill lambs either. Iconsider myself a vegetarian but if I’m in thejungles of Guatemala, Columbia, Brazil; remoteplaces like that, I eat what I can. But given achoice, I wouldn’t consume animals.

There is very good documentation of dolphinssaving the lives of human beings. That isaltruism and something special. That iscommunication. Unlike other animals in thezoo, they’re self-aware animals that routinelymake choices about their lives. They’ve beenhere for 65 mill ion years and are veryintelligent. They’re entitled to freedom. Drivingthem into a secret cove and butchering them issimply wrong.

When did you start going to Taiji?

I knew about the slaughter about 10 years agobut I was under the impression that otherNGOs were working on it. I didn’t realize until Icame here that all they’re doing is puttingthese graphic pictures on their websites andtelling people to write to the prime minister ofJapan. And that won’t stop it.

The Japanese groups are under an umbrellaand they’re all upset with me because theydon’t like westerners coming here andinterfering. They say ‘we’ve been working onthis for 20 years.’ I say, ‘So how come theJapanese people don’t know this is going on?What have you been doing for 20 years? Theysay we’re not against whaling, we’re for thewhales. It is some kind of politically correct,fucking mumbo-jumbo, what does it mean?

You don’t accept that this is tradition.

Traditional whaling might be going out in a

canoe and killing one dolphin for Christmas. Iwouldn’t be opposed to that either. But that’snot what they’re doing. This is the largestslaughter of dolphins in the world. They’recreating the illusion this is tradition and it isnot; it is genocide. We have to oppose thisabsolutely and I am doing everything in mypower to stop it, short of breaking the law. If Ido, I’ll not be able to return and I’ll be out ofthe fight.In Japan, once you’ve been labeled a criminalyou’re out of the fight and they’d love to get ridof me: I’m the biggest thorn in their side. Ibring and encourage journalists to go there andreport it, including the BBC. 300 million peoplesaw a recent BBC documentary on Taiji. Andthat’s why the dolphin hunters hate me becausethey told me. ‘If the world finds out about thiswe’ll have to stop.’ This kind of evil only thrivesin the dark.

Japanese will say you have no right to tellthem what to eat.

They’re not their dolphins, they don’t carryJapanese passports; they belong to the planet.And this is a national park: what right do youhave to kills animals in a national park. Is thereanother park that would do this? Also, theyhave no right to block people taking pictures ofthis. Japanese people can come to the US andtake pictures of what they like in America.

But the fast food industry in Americawould hardly appreciate tourists takingpictures of US slaughter houses, wouldthey?

Well sure, if you go into the slaughter house,but Japanese tourists can go to the slaughterhouses and bear witness to what happens.

Do you think that people like you only make thewhalers dig their heels in?It does and I’ve come to believe that only theJapanese people can stop this problem. I’m justa spark plug. Japanese have to do it but they

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don’t have the information because of thesuppression of information here. The media isin violation of Article 21. People are never toldabout it, so my job is to get the information out.

Who pays for these trips to Japan?

I ’m part o f a coa l i t ion o f non-prof i tenvironmental groups. We can be found atsavejapandolphin.org: the Earth IslandInstitute, Animal Welfare Institute and InDefense of Animals. Our members pay for meto go to Japan but it is a struggle to raise themoney. We monitor the treatment of dolphinsaround the world; so tuna boats are a problem,because dolphins travel above the tuna and theboats put a net around everything and killeverything, including the dolphins.

The only thing that ended that practice in theUS was public outrage. Now, when people buytheir tuna in the US, they know it didn’t involvekilling dolphins because it says so on the tins.W e ’ v e a l s o c l o s e d 5 0 s u b s t a n d a r ddolphinariums around the world. If there’s adolphin in trouble anywhere in this planet, myphone rings and my e-mail box fills up. I haveto rescue them.

Rick O’Barry’s website, including a video ont h e d o l p h i n h u n t i n T a i j i , i swww.savejapandolphins.org

David McNeill writes about Japan for theLondon Independent and other publications. Heis a Japan Focus coordinator. Posted at JapanFocus on January 2, 2007.