Controversy erupts over film on Dolphins

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Japanese

town starts dolphin hunt under global spotlight[image: AFP]

[image: Japanese town starts dolphin hunt under global spotlight]

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536da3bc6215cef931//s:/afp/20090911/lf_afp/japananimalenvironmentdolphins>AFP/HO\

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– This

file shows Japanese fishermen riding a boat loaded with slaughtered dolphins

at a blood-covered …

by Kyoko Hasegawa Kyoko Hasegawa – Fri Sep 11, 2:35 am ET

 

TAIJI, Japan (AFP) – To animal rights activists it's a cruel and bloody

slaughter; for Japanese it's a long tradition: this week fishermen in a

picturesque coastal town embarked on their annual dolphin hunt.

 

Every year, crews in motorboats here have rounded up about 2,000 of the sea

mammals, banged metal poles to herd them into a small, rocky cove and killed

them with harpoons, sparing a few dozen for sale to marine aquariums.

 

But this year the small southwestern town of Taiji was shunted into the

global spotlight with the release of the hard-hitting US-made

eco-documentary " The Cove " .

 

In the film, years in the making, a team of underwater cameramen, free

divers and other experts used hidden cameras and other technical devices to

covertly capture the hunt in graphic detail.

 

The film shows angry confrontations between residents and the lead activist,

Ric O'Barry, who in the 1960s trained dolphins for the US hit television

show " Flipper " but now argues the animals should be free to roam the oceans.

 

The film won numerous international prizes, including the Sundance

Festival's audience award, and last month led the Australian city of Broome

to announce it would cancel it sister-city relationship with Taiji.

 

" Dolphins are a large-brain creature, " O'Barry, 69, told AFP during a recent

return visit to Japan. " They are highly intelligent, they are self-aware,

like gorillas and humans. I nursed them, I watched them give birth.

 

" And for me, to kill them, is extremely, extremely... " He paused, then

simply added: " I don't see the purpose. "

 

In Taiji, where about 3,700 people live, the global uproar stirred by " The

Cove " has met with equal incomprehension -- and anger.

 

" If it's cruel to kill dolphins, it's also cruel to kill cows and pigs, "

Hiromitsu Taniguchi, a 41-year-old house painter, told AFP during a recent

interview as several of his friends nodded in agreement.

 

" I can never understand those Westerners' argument. They eat cattle, pigs

and chicken. We eat dolphins and whales. That's it. "

 

Fishermen and town officials declined to speak with AFP about the film,

citing what they described as widespread media bias against them.

 

" We've been betrayed for years by reporters, " said a fishing cooperative

official. " If we explain our opinions to them, editors cut out the parts

giving our views and the result is stories supporting anti-whaling

activists. "

 

Taiji is filled with monuments to dolphins and whales, which are commonly

grouped as 'whales' in conversations here, and has a museum dedicated to

hunting the sea mammals, a practice it says started around the year 1600.

 

At a monument, people from the town pray for the souls of the dolphins,

porpoises and whales killed in the hunts.

 

The film's director, Louie Psihoyos -- a veteran National Geographic

photographer and co-founder of the non-profit group the Ocean Preservation

Society -- says he doesn't buy the tradition argument.

 

" The dolphin hunters told us that they are proud of their tradition, " he

told AFP in an email. " This 'tradition' has been only going on with fast

diesel power boats " since the early 1900s, he wrote.

 

Psihoyos suggested that some traditions need to end. " In America we had a

much older tradition of slavery and not allowing women to vote. "

 

Amid the raging controversy, Taiji's fishermen started their annual hunt

Wednesday, catching about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales, said

Wakayama prefectural official Yasushi Shimamura.

 

They plan to sell about 50 dolphins to aquariums nationwide and release the

remainder back into the sea, while the whale meat will be sold for human

consumption, an official at a local fishermen's cooperative said.

 

Officials said they would not slaughter any of the dolphins caught on

Wednesday, but denied it was due to international pressure and did not say

whether or not they would hunt or cull more of the animals this season.

 

" We didn't decide to release the remainder of the dolphins because there

have been protests against dolphin hunting from animal rights activists, "

said a fisheries cooperative official who declined to give his name.

 

" From the viewpoint of resource control, we've been occasionally releasing

them on our own judgement in the past. "

 

This year, Taiji was allocated a cull quota of about 2,300 small cetaceans,

or hairless aquatic mammals such as dolphins, whales and porpoises.

 

O'Barry made a return visit to the town, accompanied by media, at the start

of the hunting season, September 1, but the hunt was delayed by officials

citing inclement weather conditions.

 

He was an unwelcome guest, blocked at one stage by a fisherman from entering

a supermarket that sells dolphin and whale meat.

 

O'Barry has stressed that his message is not anti-Japanese but intended to

protect them because dolphin meat, once served in school lunches in Taiji

and still sold elsewhere in Japan, is toxic.

 

He told AFP that he came back " to get this information out about mercury

poison in dolphin meat, " referring to the heavy metal that concentrates in

the marine food chain and is often found in dolphin meat.

 

People in Taiji say they already know about the mercury risk.

 

" The Cove " , which has not been shown in Japanese cinemas, features

interviews with two Japanese experts who speak about the heavy metal.

 

Both now say they are angry their comments were used in the film.

 

Hisato Ryono, 52, an assemblyman in Taiji who raised the alarm over dolphin

meat being served in school lunches, said: " It's a betrayal. I thought (the

film) was about marine pollution, but it's about anti-whaling. "

 

" Showing the scene of the slaughter is not fair. "

 

Tetsuya Endo, of the Health Science University of Hokkaido, who also spoke

about the mercury risk on camera, said: " The overall tone of the film is an

insult to the Japanese people and the people of Taiji in particular. "

 

Psihoyos told AFP: " 'The Cove' is not an attack on the Japanese people... I

believe stopping the killing of dolphins is a win-win situation for both the

dolphins and the Japanese people. "