Japan's 'Town of Whales' begins to question controversial hunt

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Japan's 'Town of Whales' begins to question

controversial hunt

 

TAIJI, Japan (AFP) Nov 26, 2003

Just down the road from a cove where thousands of

dolphins are slaughtered for food every year in this

coastal town in western Japan, a sign reads: " Let's

play with dolphins. "

 

In a bizarre juxtaposition, the dolphin-hunting

industry here operates side by side with a lucrative

trade built on tourists' enjoyment of the live marine

mammals that enables visitors to swim with dolphins

and watch killer whales perform.

 

" They (the dolphins) seem so pitiful, " said Yuko

Egawa, a 49-year-old tourist from Osaka, as she

watched fishermen in boats herd a pod of Risso's

dolphins into a cove Sunday for their slaughter for

the next day's fish market.

 

After visiting a whale museum that puts on daily

dolphin and killer whale performances only a few

hundred meters (yards) away, Egawa admitted the

thought of dolphins herded in for the kill was

unsettling.

 

" It makes you lose your appetite, " said Egawa.

 

Taiji, a Pacific port town of 4,000 inhabitants some

500 kilometersmiles) southwest of Tokyo, is known as

the " Town of Whales " .

 

It owes its existence to a 400-year-old whaling

industry that developed because of the Kuroshio

current which attracts whales to feed off the marine

life it carries to within easy reach.

 

But this traditional way of life has attracted what

locals have called the most vociferous conservationist

protests they have ever seen, and even some of them

are now questioning the practice.

 

The town has found itself the focus of unwanted

attention after anti-whaling activists took graphic

video footage of the dolphin slaughter in seawater

turned red with blood and posted it on the Internet

last month.

 

" If you see a living thing being killed, of course,

everyone feels the same way, " a 70-year-old retired

whaler, who did not want to be identified, told AFP,

noting some local fishermen opposed the dolphin hunt.

 

" There are lots of fishermen here who don't want to be

seen as people who make their living by killing other

living things, " he said.

 

The impact of the global moratorium on commercial

whaling imposed by the International Whaling

Commission (IWC) which took effect in 1986 has been

felt heavily here.

 

Four decades ago whalers accounted for about half of

the towns tax revenues. Today this has dropped to

about a third, while the number involved in the hunt

has shrunk from a peak of 268 in 1963 to only 36.

 

Amid the attention brought to Japan's coastal dolphin

hunting practices, the country's controversial deep

sea research whaling fleet set sail again this month

on an annual voyage to the Antarctic Ocean to kill up

to 440 minke whales.

 

Japan argues that the research backs up its claims

that whale populations are thriving, and provides data

showing whales are consuming valuable fish stocks.

Opponents argue it is just commercial whaling in

disguise.

 

Japan stopped commercial whaling in 1988 after

withdrawing its objection to the IWC moratorium,

intended to regulate the whaling industry and manage

stocks.

 

But it began what it calls " research " whaling in 1987,

using a loophole in the moratorium permitting the

hunting of whales for research purposes.

 

Japan kills about 700 large whales a year in the name

of research, including animals taken on a summer

whaling voyage to the North Pacific which is doubly

controversial as endangered sei whales have been part

of the quota.

 

Joji Morishita, deputy director of the Far Seas

Fisheries Division of Japan's fisheries agency,

dismissed as " ridiculous " charges that the research

cull was thinly disguised commercial whaling.

 

" We are collecting more than 100 items of data from

each and every whale we sample, " he said, noting that

age determinants and stomach contents were crucial to

understanding the population, and important for the

IWC's scientific committee.

 

The meat from the research cull -- about 2,000 tons

annually, according to environmental group Greenpeace

-- ends up in supermarkets and restaurants across

Japan, a practice defended on the grounds it finances

future whaling missions.

 

According to the whaling commission's rules, research

whalemeat must be processed and sold, Morishita said.

" We are 100 percent following the legal requirements. "

 

Dolphins such as those trapped at Taiji are not

covered by the whaling commission's ban. Taiji's quota

of 2,900 dolphins out of the nation's annual take of

some 22,000, is among the largest in the nation,

according to fisheries agency officials.

 

Nik Hensey, an activist with the Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society who has organized protests in

Taiji for the past two months, including the attempted

cutting of a net trapping dolphins for which two

protesters were arrested, said Japan's whaling days

should end.

 

" These are not only unsustainable practices, they are

inhumanely cruel, brutal and unnecessary, " he said.

 

And despite the burgeoning dolphin- and whale-watching

tourism industry here, which pays whalers about 10

times more for a live bottlenosed dolphin than they

get for one sold as meat, local fishery officials said

the hunt was vital to the town's survival.

 

Whalers were once the richest people in town and today

are still in the upper crust, said Miyato Sugimori, a

senior official in the Taiji Fishery Cooperative.

 

" It used to be the dream of young women to get married

aboard a whaling ship, " he said.

 

" But with tougher limits, we have lost a lot of jobs,

and youngsters are leaving. "

 

" If we lose this (the dolphin hunt), this town will

just be full of grandmothers and grandfathers. "

 

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence

France-Presse.

 

 

 

 

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