(JP)Taiji watches its whale and eats it too

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010628b2.htm

 

IDLE HARPOONS

 

CAN TOURISM SAVE TOWN?

Taiji watches its whale and eats it too

 

Last of three parts

 

By KAZUHIRO KIMURA

TAIJI, Wakayama Pref. (Kyodo) This town with ties to

whales that go back more than three centuries is

staking its future on the giant mammals despite

Japan's forced halting of commercial whaling in 1988.

 

Masashi Urayama, a former fisherman who used to catch

dolphins, is betting that whale watching, not hunting,

is his and the town's future. He captains the

whale-watching ship Sueyoshi Maru, which takes

tourists about 40 km out into the Pacific Ocean off

the coast of Taiji.

 

People who crowd the deck of the Sueyoshi Maru are

treated to the sight of migrating pods of sperm whales

and a cold-water bath from the high swells.

 

Schools of dolphins are also common in the area,

leaping and frolicking around the ship.

 

While some fishermen still hunt dolphins, Urayama, 34,

stopped doing so about nine years ago because, he

said, " the catch quota was small. "

 

Now that he is in the tourism industry, Urayama is

trying to strike a balance between his business and

his former peers in the commercial whaling industry.

He keeps in touch with the hunters to swap information

on the location of dolphins and sperm whales.

 

Tourism is one of the few remaining industries in the

town, which features a genuine whaling ship remodeled

into a hall for whale reference materials. There are

also some 10 fishing ships that have been converted to

whale-watching vessels in the area.

 

Taiji's history is strongly linked to whales and

whaling, and in striving to find ways to stay active

-- even though commercial whaling is banned -- its

future, like its past, seems to depend on the giant

mammals.

 

The town boasts a restaurant that serves whale meat,

while the town office manages the Taiji Whale Museum,

where visitors can see dolphins twice a day.

 

There are also indications of the efforts made by the

town office to retain Taiji's ties to whales, such as

the images of the mammals that grace manhole covers in

the town.

 

However, the town is facing an uphill battle to

survive. One of its largest handicaps is its remote

location -- Taiji is three hours by express train from

Osaka. The number of visitors to the whale museum has

halved in the past 10 years.

 

" Ultimately, there is no way (for Taiji to survive)

but (to seek) the resumption of commercial whaling, "

said Iwao Isone, 74, who owns a small whaling ship.

 

The town is watching the International Whaling

Commission's debate on the matter with faint hope. The

commission, which is scheduled to hold its general

assembly in London in July, is also slated to meet in

Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, next year.

 

Locals figure there are no clues yet as to whether

Japan, with its opposition to the ban on commercial

whaling, can find a middle ground with antiwhaling

nations.

 

The IWC passed a resolution last year saying that it

would work expeditiously to ease the plight of whaling

towns like Taiji, as well as Abashiri in Hokkaido and

Oshika, Miyagi Prefecture. However, nations including

the United States remain strongly opposed to resuming

commercial whaling.

 

Masateru Seko, 24, returned to his home in Taiji last

year after losing his job with a paper manufacturer in

Shizuoka Prefecture due to restructuring. He joined a

fleet of whaling ships, purportedly for scientific

purposes, and left for the Antarctic in November.

 

He was the first young man from Taiji to join the

whaling industry in 20 years. Retired whalers in the

town were pleased to see the young man take part in

whaling and encouraged him to " show others that a

whaler from Taiji is different from those who come

from other places. "

 

The Japan Times: June 28, 2001

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