TAIJI, Japan (30 Jan 2004) -- French activists said they would try to educate fishermen in a Japanese village about overfishing and the danger of eating dolphin meat, which often contains mercury, in an effort to protect the mammal. Richard O'Barry, marine mammal specialist with environmental group OneVoice, moved last week near to Taiji in western Japan, where local fishermen kill roughly 2,400 dolphins from autumn through to early spring each year. He plans to stay about two months. "They (the fishermen) believe dolphins are competing for fish, when overfishing is the real problem," O'Barry said. "This is the largest slaughter of dolphins in the world, and it is not necessary. They said it is pest control. It is the first time they admitted that," O'Barry said, adding that Taiji fishermen had long claimed they killed dolphins to sell meat. Taiji, a Pacific port town of 4,000 inhabitants some 500 kilometers (310 miles) 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. The town has found itself the focus of unwanted attention after anti-whaling activists took graphic video footage of the dolphin slaughter in blood-red seawater and posted it on the Internet late last year. Zen and the art of extreme brutality | | Taiji fishers herd dolphin 'pests' into small bay before the kill. O'Barry, an American who was part of the group that filmed the footage, said he had offered to raise enough money so that Taiji residents would not have to rely on dolphin meat for income. Residents of Taiji, however, were yet to show themselves willing to discuss the offer seriously, insisting that dolphins were pests, O'Barry said. To illustrate the danger of eating dolphin and whale meat, which usually contains high levels of mercury, O'Barry also said he was hoping to show analysis of hair samples of Taiji residents. "We challenged them with that plan," he said. "We are absolutely videotaping and networking this information ... in the hope of raising awareness and putting pressure on Japan from the outside world," he said. "We think this is the only real hope of stopping this practice," he said. SOURCE - AFP |
