TAIJI, Japan (7 Feb 2004) -- IN the 400 years that they have been hunting, the fishermen of Taiji have never found a clean way to slaughter a dolphin. As guns are strictly controlled in Japan, the hunters use sharp hooks to drag the trapped mammals from the sea and long knives to cut their arteries. The dolphins thrash in pain as they bleed to death, emitting audible whistles and cries. The shallow waters of the lagoon in which they are trapped turn red with blood. This is the way that it has always been done in Taiji, and for four centuries the world paid little attention. But this obscure spot on the southernmost tip of central Japan has recently become the site of a remarkable confrontation. Environmentalists from around the world have denounced the slaughter. Some activists have tried to obstruct the killing. The fishermen have been defiant, and there have been scuffles and arrests. To the people of Taiji, the foreigners are racist hypocrites interfering with a legitimate business rooted in centuries of tradition. To the activists, the annual dolphin hunt is a barbaric anachronism verging on murder. For a country in which face-to-face confrontation is almost taboo, the atmosphere in Taiji is profoundly tense. Taiji was once famous for its whaling industry, curtailed by a 1987 ban. Now between October and March the dolphin boats go out at least every second day. And for the past two weeks Richard and Helene O'Barry, US dolphin activists representing the French group One Voice have been watching them. They describe how the boats converge on schools of dolphins and lower metal poles into the water which are then beaten with sticks. The noise creates a wall of sound that drives the dolphins into the lagoon. Its entrance is sealed off with nets and the dolphins driven on to the shore the following dawn by the revving of outboard motors. They are killed, butchered and sold for their meat. When Mr O'Barry and members of the environmental group Sea Shepherd filmed the slaughter last October, images of churning, bloody seas were published around the world. Since then, the hunters and environmentalists have been at war. | | Slash and kill: The genius of Japan's fishing industry. The hunt is legal and dolphins are not endangered. Why, then, should they not be killed for food? To people such as Mr O'Barry, 61, a former navy diver and seal trainer, the answer is simple. "Dolphins are not fish," he says. "They are intelligent marine mammals with large brains, highly complex communication skills and a social structure. What is going on here is nothing short of genocide." That dolphins possess great intelligence is clear, but whether it approaches that of human beings is another question. "How many people in developed countries eat beef or pork, without knowing how it has been slaughtered?" asks Yoshihiro Kogai, of the Taiji fishing co-operative. "In this village, we have only been able to survive by hunting whales and dolphins," Mr Kogai says. "We owe so much to them." The hostility between the two sides is unbridgeable. The O'Barrys accuse the fishermen of menacing them with throat-cutting gestures. The fishermen are still furious about two activists cutting their nets last October, for which they were convicted and deported. Asked if dolphin hunting will survive in Taiji, local fisherman Seko replies: "It depends on the Japanese Government. They're not always very strong in resisting pressure from overseas." If dolphin hunting were banned, a magnificent creature would be saved from a bloody death - but in Taiji, at least, the sense of loss would be immeasurable. SOURCE - The Australian |
