Release date:
Source: Surfer Magazine -
The Path To Taiji
Embedded with David Rastovich and his mission to save the cetaceans
by Steve Barilotti
“If you can’t do great things, then do small things in a great way.”
—Gandhi
 HALLOWEEN, 2007
Leaving Kyoto, two stops to Shinagawa Station. We are hurtling along at a disconcerting
rate, averaging 150 mph on the straightaways. So fast that we create a mini sonic boom
when exiting a long tunnel, blasting out like the bullet this train is named for.
Out the window a blur of industrialized, tropical landscape pickets by: bucolic, green, woodcut rice paddies sprouting Good Smile fishcake factories and dingy apartment blocks. Our car, rocking maternally, is loaded with somnolent mid-level office samurai nodding off over their canned coffee and thick manga comics. If they have noted our slovenly gaijin presence, they make no outward sign of it.
Across the aisle, Justin Krumb, director/producer of Minds In The Water, is sacked out
behind black wraparounds and an impenetrable hitman goatee. He’s the biggest man on
the train, a foot taller and roughly twice the size of the average Tokyo sarariman sitting in
our car. This makes him an easy track; especially since the Wakayama police took down
everybody’s passport vitals following the second Taiji event less than 48 hours ago.
I rehearse our exit plan while attempting to decipher my set of kanji-printed tickets, all
three required to cross the electronic turnstiles within the ant-farm labyrinth of Shinagawa
Station. One cross-platform change of trains, then a 45-minute feeder line to Narita International.
Click here to download complete article (pdf)
Release date: 2008
Source: Earth Island Journal - Spring 2008
International Marine Mammal Project:
Saving Dolphins
by Mark J. Palmer
Click here to download complete article (pdf)
Release date: 12-09-2007
Source: Surfer Magazine - September Issue
RASTA TAKES AIM AT POACHERS:
HEADS TO ALASKA TO CONFRONT INTERNATIONAL WHALING COMMISION.
by Steve Barilotti
 Earlier this year SURFER reported on Dave Rastovich's quest to activate the surfing community to join the fight to save dolphins and whales from illegal commercial slaughter (see "Pirates of Compassion" March 2007). Since then, Rasta has co-founded the grassroots advocacy group Surfers for Cetaceans, and after getting a host of high-profile surfers pledging their support, he passed on a combination of Southern Hemisphere swells to head up on a fact-finding mission to Anchorage, Alaska, the site of the 59th annual International Whaling Commision (IWC) hearings.
As we reported back in March, much of Rasta's inspiration for rallying the surf community stems from a meeting he had with Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and one of Rasta's personal heroes. "His book, Ocean Warrior, changed my life," said Rasta. Watson, a renowned defender of whales and dolphins, is best known for confronting and even disabling lawbreakers on the high seas. He's even gone as far as sinking illegal whaling fleets in harbor.
More info:
> Surfer Magazine |
 Taiji officials: Dolphin meat ‘toxic waste’
(Note: The Save Japan Dolphins Coalition, which includes Elsa Nature Conservancy of Japan, Earth Island, Animal Welfare Institute, and In Defense of Animals, has achieved a remarkable breakthrough in getting stories published in Japanese newspapers about the dolphin slaughter in Taiji. Here, two town council members from the whaling town of Taiji come out publicly against the use of mercury-poisoned pilot whale meat in Japan’s school lunch programs. Coalition members Sakae Hemi of Elsa and Ric O’Barry deserve huge credit for breaking this amazing front-page story. This type of coverage of the dolphin killing and mercury scandal has never happened in Japan. The Save Japan Dolphins Coalition's efforts are having a tremendous and remarkable effect. For more information, go to: www.SaveJapanDolphins.org – David Phillips and Mark J. Palmer)
Photo: Richard O'Barry of Save Japan Dolphins Coalition interviews two Taiji Town Council Members on the dangers of mercury poisoning from dolphin meat in school lunch programs.
Boyd Harnell photo.
> More from the Japan Times |
 Tokyo sanctions an extended cull of Taiji dolphins
from the Japan Times
By BOYD HARNELL
Special to The Japan Times
Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2007
The photos accompanying this article were shot covertly despite escalating intimidation by members of the Isana Fishery Union in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, who appear to be increasingly fearful that continuing publicity in Japan and abroad will threaten their widely condemned but profitable annual dolphin slaughter.
> More from the Japan Times |