(AP) TOKYO — Japan says it has caught 195 whales in the Pacific Ocean this
season under a research program opposed by activists who call it commercial
whaling in disguise.
Japan's Fisheries Agency said Thursday that the
fleet harvested 49 minke, 95 sei and 50 Bryde's whales and one sperm whale
during its three-month Pacific expedition.
Japan also hunts hundreds of
whales in the Antarctic Ocean as part of its research program, which is exempt
from a 1986 whaling ban.
Critics say the expeditions are a cover for
commercial whaling because meat from the harvest is sold for domestic
consumption.
Japan's annual whale catch has declined in recent years due
to violent protests by conservationist groups.
jueves, 22 de septiembre de 2011
jueves, 15 de septiembre de 2011
Dolphin slaughter turns sea red as Japan hunting season returns
The gruesome spectacle of dolphins being slaughtered for profit has returned to Taiji, just as international condemnation of the Japanese town's annual cull reaches a crescendo. At least 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales have been taken in the first hunt of the season, which began on 1 September.
Over the next six months the town's fishermen will catch about 2,300 of Japan's annual quota of 20,000 dolphins. The meat from a single animal fetches up to 50,000 yen (£330), but aquariums are prepared to pay up to £90,000 for certain types.
In a typical hunt the fishermen pursue pods of dolphins across open seas, banging metal poles together beneath the water to confuse their hypersensitive sonar. The exhausted animals are driven into a large cove sealed off by nets to stop them escaping and dragged backwards into secluded inlets the following morning to be butchered with knives and spears. They are then loaded on to boats and taken to the quayside to be cut up in a warehouse, the fishermen's work hidden from the outside by heavy shutters.
Taiji officials said all the pilot whales caught on this expedition had been killed and their meat put on the market, but added that half of the bottlenose catch would be sold to aquariums and the remainder "set free", in an apparent attempt to mollify international opinion.
It is impossible to verify those claims. The bottlenose dolphins were still penned in close to the shoreline more than 24 hours after they had been captured.
Guardian photographs taken covertly during the cull show what appears to be a young bottlenose floating, motionless and belly up, just beyond the slaughter zone.
What is clear is that a siege mentality has taken hold in Taiji, an isolated town of 3,500 on the Pacific coast of Wakayama prefecture.
Tensions have been rising and the culls conducted in near-secrecy since 2003, when two members of the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd released several dolphins that were being kept in an enclosure ready to be slaughtered.
During our visit we were followed at almost every turn, ordered not to take photographs and questioned by the police, who seem to view every foreign visitor as a potential hunt saboteur. None of the residents who agreed to talk would reveal their names, and requests for comments from the town office were ignored.
Criticism of the dolphin hunts intensified this summer with the release of the award-winning US documentary The Cove, whose makers used remote-controlled helicopters and hidden underwater cameras to record the hunters at work.
The film, with its graphic footage of the dolphin slaughter, sparked outrage after its release in the US and Australia. Last month councillors in the Australian coastal town of Broome suspended its 28-year sister-city relationship with Taiji after receiving thousands of emails protesting at the culls.
Taiji is regarded as the spiritual home of Japan's whaling industry. The first hunts took place in the early 1600s, according to the town's whaling museum, but the industry went into decline after the introduction of a global ban on commercial whaling in 1986.
The town, a six-hour train ride from Tokyo, is dotted with restaurants serving whale and dolphin sashimi and cetacean iconography appears on everything from the pavements and bridge balustrades to road tunnels and a wind turbine.
Yet in other respects it does not have the feel of a town that takes pride in its traditions. Last week's pilot whale cull was conducted in inlets shielded on three sides by steep cliffs and dense undergrowth to deter campaigners and journalists. Barriers have been hastily erected along coastal paths that run through publicly owned land.
Local fishermen point out that the dolphins and other small cetaceans are not covered by the whaling moratorium. What critics regard as the senseless slaughter of intelligent creatures they see as a legitimate exercise in pest control, blaming dolphins for decimating fish stocks.
"People say dolphins are cute and smart, but some regions have a tradition of eating dolphin meat," said Toshinori Uoya, a fisheries official. "Dolphin-killing may be bad for our international image, but we can't just issue an order for it to stop."
The hero of the film is Ric O'Barry, a 69-year-old activist who has waged a one-man campaign against Taiji's dolphin culls for more than a decade. "We have to keep Taiji in the news," said O'Barry, who trained dolphins for the 1960s TV series Flipper before devoting himself to their conservation. "There is an international tsunami of attention.
"I've been working with dolphins for most of my life. I watched them give birth. I've nursed them back to health. When I see what happens in this cove in Taiji, I want to do something about it."
To many Taiji residents, O'Barry's comments typify the hypocrisy they say lies at the heart of mounting fury at their centuries-old tradition of killing whales and dolphins.
"I think we are the victims of a form of racism," said one, as we watched the pilot whales being herded out of sight to be killed. "Westerners slaughter cattle and other animals in the most inhumane ways imaginable, but no one says a word. Why is it that only Japan gets this kind of treatment?"WWW.COMPREOALQUILE.INFO
Over the next six months the town's fishermen will catch about 2,300 of Japan's annual quota of 20,000 dolphins. The meat from a single animal fetches up to 50,000 yen (£330), but aquariums are prepared to pay up to £90,000 for certain types.
In a typical hunt the fishermen pursue pods of dolphins across open seas, banging metal poles together beneath the water to confuse their hypersensitive sonar. The exhausted animals are driven into a large cove sealed off by nets to stop them escaping and dragged backwards into secluded inlets the following morning to be butchered with knives and spears. They are then loaded on to boats and taken to the quayside to be cut up in a warehouse, the fishermen's work hidden from the outside by heavy shutters.
Taiji officials said all the pilot whales caught on this expedition had been killed and their meat put on the market, but added that half of the bottlenose catch would be sold to aquariums and the remainder "set free", in an apparent attempt to mollify international opinion.
It is impossible to verify those claims. The bottlenose dolphins were still penned in close to the shoreline more than 24 hours after they had been captured.
Guardian photographs taken covertly during the cull show what appears to be a young bottlenose floating, motionless and belly up, just beyond the slaughter zone.
What is clear is that a siege mentality has taken hold in Taiji, an isolated town of 3,500 on the Pacific coast of Wakayama prefecture.
Tensions have been rising and the culls conducted in near-secrecy since 2003, when two members of the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd released several dolphins that were being kept in an enclosure ready to be slaughtered.
During our visit we were followed at almost every turn, ordered not to take photographs and questioned by the police, who seem to view every foreign visitor as a potential hunt saboteur. None of the residents who agreed to talk would reveal their names, and requests for comments from the town office were ignored.
Criticism of the dolphin hunts intensified this summer with the release of the award-winning US documentary The Cove, whose makers used remote-controlled helicopters and hidden underwater cameras to record the hunters at work.
The film, with its graphic footage of the dolphin slaughter, sparked outrage after its release in the US and Australia. Last month councillors in the Australian coastal town of Broome suspended its 28-year sister-city relationship with Taiji after receiving thousands of emails protesting at the culls.
Taiji is regarded as the spiritual home of Japan's whaling industry. The first hunts took place in the early 1600s, according to the town's whaling museum, but the industry went into decline after the introduction of a global ban on commercial whaling in 1986.
The town, a six-hour train ride from Tokyo, is dotted with restaurants serving whale and dolphin sashimi and cetacean iconography appears on everything from the pavements and bridge balustrades to road tunnels and a wind turbine.
Yet in other respects it does not have the feel of a town that takes pride in its traditions. Last week's pilot whale cull was conducted in inlets shielded on three sides by steep cliffs and dense undergrowth to deter campaigners and journalists. Barriers have been hastily erected along coastal paths that run through publicly owned land.
Local fishermen point out that the dolphins and other small cetaceans are not covered by the whaling moratorium. What critics regard as the senseless slaughter of intelligent creatures they see as a legitimate exercise in pest control, blaming dolphins for decimating fish stocks.
"People say dolphins are cute and smart, but some regions have a tradition of eating dolphin meat," said Toshinori Uoya, a fisheries official. "Dolphin-killing may be bad for our international image, but we can't just issue an order for it to stop."
The hero of the film is Ric O'Barry, a 69-year-old activist who has waged a one-man campaign against Taiji's dolphin culls for more than a decade. "We have to keep Taiji in the news," said O'Barry, who trained dolphins for the 1960s TV series Flipper before devoting himself to their conservation. "There is an international tsunami of attention.
"I've been working with dolphins for most of my life. I watched them give birth. I've nursed them back to health. When I see what happens in this cove in Taiji, I want to do something about it."
To many Taiji residents, O'Barry's comments typify the hypocrisy they say lies at the heart of mounting fury at their centuries-old tradition of killing whales and dolphins.
"I think we are the victims of a form of racism," said one, as we watched the pilot whales being herded out of sight to be killed. "Westerners slaughter cattle and other animals in the most inhumane ways imaginable, but no one says a word. Why is it that only Japan gets this kind of treatment?"WWW.COMPREOALQUILE.INFO
Track and survey bottlenose dolphins in Mediterranean waters to help scientists understand and combat the main threats to them and their ecosystem.
Track and survey bottlenose dolphins in Mediterranean waters to help scientists understand and combat the main threats to them and their ecosystem.
Based in the charming Greek village of Vonitsa on the Amvrakikos Gulf, you’ll have the opportunity to experience traditional village life as you help researchers conduct daily surveys on the area's bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). From a small research vessel, you’ll scan the water for signs of dolphin activity. Your team will search for dolphins and once found, you will follow them, and record information on their numbers, group composition, behaviour, movement patterns and interactions with the area’s fishing industry. The research team identifies individual dolphins by looking at distinguishing natural marks such as scars, bite marks, nicks, and notches in their dorsal fins. You will find yourself in the middle of a dolphin group, occasionally including calves or newborns. Dolphins often approach the research boat to bowride, even when the boat is moving slowly, so you’ll have a chance to see them up close and if you get lucky you might even hear their echolocation clicks and whistles.
Back at the field station, you’ll help enter data and prepare digital images of these dorsal fins to compare them and match them with the project catalogue to identify which individuals where seen in the field. Your days will start early, but you will have some free time each afternoon for resting or otherwise enjoying the quiet coast.WWW.COMPREOALQUILE.INFO
martes, 13 de septiembre de 2011
Dolphin Massacre
The Cove sent shockwaves around the world in 2009, revealing the brutal and heartless slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. Haunting images of blood-stained waters and ruthless fishermen stabbing their captive prey left audiences aghast.
The Academy Award winning exposé was produced by the Oceanic Preservation Society, a Colorado-based group that promotes marine conservation and environmentalism. Their covert operation lifted the lid on how 20,000 Bottlenose dolphins are cruelly herded into lagoons every year, where the more charismatic can be auctioned off for upwards of $200,000 to international marine parks.
The OPS state: “After the trainers and spectators have left, the rest of the dolphins are inhumanely killed in what can only be described as a massacre … The butchered dolphins are later used for food, but the Japanese government has intentionally sheltered people from the dangers of eating them.”
The documentary centred on Ric O’Barry’s dedicated journey to both protect dolphins in the wild and free those forced to perform in dolphinariums; a multi-billion dollar industry he, unfortunately, helped popularise with his work on the ‘60s TV hit Flipper.
Ric O'Barry
Indeed, the pivotal moment in O’Barry’s life came when Kathy, one of the Flipper dolphins, is said to have committed suicide in his arms, unable to cope with the stresses of her imprisonment. Decades on and still racked with overwhelming guilt, the activist has since made it his mission to stop the killing of dolphins and to end the trafficking in live dolphins to theme parks.
The film’s success has opened many doors for his cause, as O’Barry notes on his blog: “Before The Cove came out, I was beating down the doors of media in Japan begging them to cover the story. After The Cove, they met me at the airport and followed us to almost every location. Our press conference was attended by over 100 media representatives, including every major broadcast outlet.
“We still have a lot of work to do, but the secret is now out!”
Aside from highlighting the deplorable animal abuse, The Cove also publicised the serious threats that mercury-laced dolphin meat could pose to human health. High levels of toxin are found in the animals, owing to chemical waste littering the seas, and consumption could lead to severe brain damage.
Since its release, the film has been responsible for the removal of dolphin meat from Japanese school dinners, yet the vast majority of Japanese people are still sheltered from the slaughter and are completely unaware that much of the meat they purchase is actually mislabeled dolphin meat.
The OPS claim: “While the Japanese government defends dolphin hunting as part of their cultural heritage, this tradition has serious health effects on its own people.”
Nearly 2 million people have signed an international petition to end the hunting; however, 1 September heralded the start of a six-month ‘dolphin-drive’ season in Taiji. Stirred by the film, protestors from all over the globe descended on the small harbour town to create a ‘media circus.’
Campaigner, Laura Bridgeman commented: “When we reached the pebbled shore of the cove, I let the waves wash over my feet for a moment. I shuddered to think of the blood spilled here each year and which would be again shortly … The waves and wind, together with the click and flash of the media’s cameras, were the only sounds to be heard.
“Later, as we were leaving a restaurant after an authentic and delicious Japanese meal, we were approached by two locals who recognized us from the evening news. These Japanese people, a mother and a daughter, told us that they had been unaware of the dolphin killing in Taiji, and that they were happy we were there. The daughter loved dolphins, and she did not want to see them hurt.”
Elsewhere, YAHOO! News reported how demonstrators gathered outside Japanese embassies in Washington, London, Stockholm, Rome and Manila, demanding an end to the ‘wantonly cruel’ hunts.
Katie Arth, of animal rights group PETA, suggested: “People can do something by just not going anywhere where dolphins perform and by contacting their embassy.”
Having been recently spellbound by both the BBC’s Natural World and Ocean Giants series, it is hard to believe that the human race can be quite so callous to these intriguing and intelligent creatures. It has been proven that they are self-aware and are capable of human-like emotions, with intricate communication skills and an ability to learn from one another. It may sound a cliché but … dolphins are amazing. This makes witnessing the atrocities of Taiji such a shattering experience that resonates with so many.
Ric O’Barry notes: “Although the killing of bottlenose dolphins – the primary target species – has dramatically decreased compared to previous seasons, they, along with other dolphin species, including many pilot whales and Risso’s dolphins, continue to be captured for aquariums and slaughtered for meat by the Taiji fishermen. The fight for the protection of all marine mammals goes on
Japan's Dolphin Hunt Slammed
WASHINGTON: Demonstrators protested outside of Japan's embassies around the world on Thursday to urge an end to its killing of dolphins, criticising the bloody annual hunt as wantonly cruel.
In Washington, some two dozen people stood in front of the embassy holding signs to passing traffic including, "Dolphins Want to Live."
Activist Kerri Shaw attached to her body a screen showing footage from "The Cove," the Oscar-winning documentary that threw a spotlight on the hunt.
Katie Arth, an organiser with rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said that the dolphin hunt was motivated in part by a profit motive as animals are sold to perform in aquariums around the world.
"It's a huge push as to why they continue to do this, because it's so profitable. And people can do something about that by just not going anywhere where dolphins perform and by contacting the embassy," she said.
Fellow activist Taylor Mason said that most Japanese were unaware of the dolphin killing in the western town of Taiji, which generally goes to pains to prevent media coverage of the hunt.
"The major way to break the cycle of silence is through events like this and through discussion, to get the word out not only in Japan but in the United States and other countries that it's not okay to see dolphins perform and to train them," Mason said.
Similar protests were being held across the United States and in world cities including London, Rome, Stockholm and Manila.
Every year the fishermen of Taiji corral some 2,000 dolphins into a secluded bay, select a few dozen for sale to aquariums and marine parks, and stab the rest to death for meat in a slaughter that turns the water red.
The town's fishermen defend the hunt as a cultural tradition and "The Cove" was met by protests from right-wing activists when it screened in Japan.
"The Cove" caught rare footage of the hunt in a narrative focused on Ric O'Barry, the dolphin trainer for the 1960s US television show "Flipper" who has since campaigned against keeping the intelligent creatures in captivity.
O'Barry called for a worldwide "Celebrate Japan Dolphins Day" on September 1, the usual start of the Taiji hunting season. But he urged activists to keep the message positive so as not to alienate the Japanese in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami tragedy.
Stop the dolphin slaughter
Is it OK to kill dolphins and pilot whales because the International Whaling Commission says they are “small” cetaceans and so not protected by whaling bans? NO!!!!!!
Here’s some photos of the protest organised by London Against Cetacean Slaughter outside the Japanese Embassy on the 1st September as part of a global demonstration which saw co-ordinated events in other European cities and in New Zealand, Australia and the US as part of a movement that recognises that more needs to be done to protect our oceans and marine life.
Dolphins and whales are apex predators and are a critical part of the ecosystem, which in many parts of the world are now showing signs of serious environmental damage and a number of species are listed as endangered and we need to ensure that these barbaric practices are stopped as we seek to establish a more sustainable marine ecosystems and protect the oceans
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