The 2009 documentary The Cove, which depicted the practice of corralling and slaughtering dolphins in a small bay tinged crimson from the blood, has visited a bewildering past decade upon the small Japanese town of Taiji.
An outburst of international outrage at Taiji’s 400-year-old practice of dolphin hunting saw activists descend upon the coastal town to demand change, as well as lacerating criticism from celebrities and politicians including the then US ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, who called the activity “inhumane”.
A year after its release, The Cove won an Academy award for best documentary, with producer Fisher Stevens grasping the Oscar statue as he explained how the work was an “entertaining film that also tries to enlighten everybody”.
This was the moment that New York-based Japanese film-maker Megumi Sasaki felt provoked to craft a response. “There’s a saying in Japan about a little fishbone stuck in your throat,” she tells the Guardian. “It’s an issue that bothers you but you can’t reach it. This was my fish bone and I needed to speak up. I decided to make a film as soon as The Cove won the Academy award.”
Sasaki’s film, A Whale of a Tale, spans six years in and around Taiji as fishermen and activists face off, at times unpleasantly. “It’s wrong for outsiders to come in and try to destroy our history and culture,” says a whaler at one point, as protesters from the Sea Shepherd group film his comrades and hurl criticism at them. One of the activists calls a whaler a “dumbass shit”.
Dolphin hunting takes place elsewhere in Japan but Taiji is the only place where “drive” hunting occurs. This involves forcing dolphins into the now infamous cove, where they are then penned in by long nets. The dolphins are then either sold on to aquariums to become performing exhibits or butchered for meat.
In the US and most of Europe, it’s become axiomatic that the killing of dolphins and whales is barbaric and unnecessary. Dolphin shows are also coming under more scrutiny. Ric O’Barry, who brandished a pro-dolphin flag on stage at the 2010 Oscars, used to train dolphins for the popular US TV series Flipper until one, Kathy, died.
O’Barry is convinced that Kathy intentionally closed her own blowhole and committed suicide because of her distress. He has spent the following 40 years campaigning against dolphins in captivity and, latterly, the Taiji hunts. “I created this dolphin amusement industry,” O’Barry says in A Whale of a Tale. “I used to be motivated by guilt, now I’m motivated by progress.”
Sasaki, whose previous documentaries include 2008’s Herb & Dorothy, uses A Whale of a Tale to question whether progress would be better served in bridging a yawning cultural divide rather than simply shutting down the Taiji hunt.
Residents of the town are shown ladling whale meatballs into cups and enjoying chunks of striped dolphin. At other points, they burn incense in ceremonies that deify whales, the likeness of which adorn almost every large wall in Taiji. The whalers mill glumly around the dock as they are harangued. Sasaki is pointing to a long cultural practice that has collided with an enraged west that has purged itself of whaling.
“The Cove was a well-told story but it was so one-sided and was full of prejudice,” she says. “It was like they were pointing a camera at people who can’t raise their own voice. It’s like bullying.”
A Whale of a Tale illustrates how a sophisticated campaign by groups such as Sea Shepherd has, perhaps unsurprisingly, barely been countered in the court of public opinion by a town of barely 4,000 people. But it does also acknowledge how nationalist figures in Japan have seized upon the issue.
Consumption of whale and dolphin meat has been declining steadily in Japan, to the point where many young people in Tokyo have never eaten it. Sasaki has spent the last 40 years in New York but grew up in Sapporo, where she remembers only eating whale meat for the occasional school lunch.
“The older generations who grew up after the war, when there was a food shortage, have a sense of nostalgia towards it, but it was never my favourite food,” she says. “I didn’t even have dolphin until I met the leader of the whalers in 2014 and went to his house. He gave me dolphin sashimi, I suppose it was a test. It was delicious, it tasted like beef carpaccio with a fishy taste.”
Even as consumption of whale and dolphin meat has dropped, it has been embraced as an intrinsic part of Japanese character by rightwing activists, some of whom are shown in A Whale of a Tale, telling Sea Shepherd to go home via loudspeakers mounted on cars.
The dolphins slaughtered in Taiji aren’t considered at risk of becoming extinct, so the hunting throws up broader questions. Do we have the moral right to kill animals in this way? What about pigs and cows dispatched in miserable conditions in the west? Who has the right to tell who what to kill or eat? The overseas opprobrium has, ironically, breathed life into a dying practice.
“As long as we have pressure from outside the country, the more determined Japanese people are to continue it,” Sasaki says. “It’s such an irony. If these activists just stopped pressuring Japan, the younger generation would not care about eating this and it would basically all go away.”
Sasaki said that the hunt points to broader divides between countries such as the US and Japan. “Many Christian western countries think in terms of a hierarchy, where humans are near the top, just below God, and then nature is beneath us,” she says.
“In Japan, people think humans are only part of nature and no animal is better or worse. It’s very puzzling for them when westerners say dolphins and whales are intelligent and human-like, because all creatures are special. What makes an intelligent animal, anyway? Birds can fly halfway around the world without GPS, isn’t that intelligence? We hand-pick the animals we like, like dolphins or elephants that we think are majestic, but we don’t pay attention to others that are endangered.”
This cultural misalignment is exacerbated by a certain stubbornness in Japan, Sasaki says. “Tradition in Japan is something that is just handed down, whether it’s good or bad, whether it fits today’s world or not. In the west, there’s more of an examination of these sort of traditional activities.”
Ultimately, Sasaki hopes she has presented something more even-handed than The Cove, where the dolphin hunters were largely seen in footage shot from undercover cameras disguised as rocks. She doubts it will change many minds, however.
“This town of Taiji has been totally bullied by the international community but I made it clear to the fishermen that I’m not going to take sides,” she says. “I’m not here to change minds, I’m not an activist, I’m a storyteller. I want people to think about new perspectives because the world is complicated, it’s not black and white.
“There are universal themes about how we coexist. Things are so divided in the world, we don’t listen to each other, we demonize the other side of the argument. This is just a microcosm of that.”
A Whale of a Tale will open theatrically in New York on 17 August and Los Angeles on 24 August with a nationwide release to follow. A UK date has yet to be announced
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I'm sorry Sasaki-san, but I have two issues with this argument.
Firstly, it advocates a laissez-faire approach to what is a serious ecological problem. In this sense, it reinforces the old Japanese cultural stereotype that maintaining group harmony is more important than disrupting the peace. Not only does that position downplay the importance of political protest and struggle, but it also negates the reality that political and social activism are key functions in contemporary Japanese society.
Secondly, it reinforces the old "inside"/"outside" dichotomy, that posits the "Japanese" as a homogenous "inside" group, in contradistinction to the foreign "outside" other. This is part of an old ideological discourse from the Meiji Restoration era onwards, to negate the plurality of peoples, heritages and traditions that have long existed across Japan.
I agree with you that the Cove presented a one-sided, Western-biased view of the Taiji problem. You are right in saying that it denied local people a real voice. At the same time, I look forward to watching your film and seeing how you displace the Japan-as-monolith view that permeates your discourse in this Guardian interview piece.
I want to talk about a couple of your points. Not the morality of the central issue, just your response to Sasaki-san.
"...what is a serious ecological problem."
At this moment it's not a serious ecological or conservation problem. From the article, "The dolphins slaughtered in Taiji aren’t considered at risk of becoming extinct."
Accurate data on the dolphin population is important, no question. Were a huge decline in the number of dolphins to occur, that would be a big concern. But the issues here are not primarily ecological. Now Japan and tuna fishing on the other hand ...
As for the inside/outside, in-the-group/out-of-the-group dynamic, yes this plays an important part in how people in Japan understand social relationships. But who are the critics in this scenario? Who is protesting this issue, who, to be blunt, cares about this story? Not Japanese people, unless they are directly involved. It's an issue "outsiders" care about.
The Japanese are simply a "monolith" in their disinterest and dispassion in this subject. Is that really uniquely Japanese? Aren't there issues in every country that the natives shrug at, while those outside looking in sound a call to arms?
Again I don't address the morality of the situation, your post just made me feel the need to comment on the perceptions of it.
Why is the slaughter of a wild population of animals only considered a problem when they become critically endangered?
If we have learned anything from the last 100 years of conservation efforts, it’s that human ‘management’ of wildlife and their ecosystems is egregiously ineffective. Particularly when conservation efforts bump up against economic interests.
The Puget Sound orcas are revered, and were thriving until they weren’t, and now a conspiracy of poor resource management has driven the population to the likely point of collapse, and unanticipated effects of climate change accelerated the decline so that it is unlikely to recover, even with extensive support.
All marine mammals are at risk as the sea levels and acidity levels change quickly and unpredictably, and we continue to consume and contaminate the sea. I think it’s irresponsible to wait until they are on the brink of extinction to consider safeguarding their way of life.
I agree with your post, and I think I phrased mine unclearly. As a global society, humanity hunts the seas. We try to track the damage we cause and the total animals we take, in a crude attempt to maintain a kind of "balance" of the ecosystem. But tracking data and actually doing something to help the ecology of our oceans is quite different.
I mentioned tuna in the previous post. People love to eat it. So people hunt it. And because of our data, we know it's going extinct. Do people do anything? Do anything to curtail their appetite for tuna?
*crickets + collective shrug I guess*
People are being irresponsible on a global scale, and that's something to get angry about. But what I was trying to say in my last post is: in spite of the seriousness of this environmental catastrophe, it isn't the main issue here. Here, in the case of Taiji, I think that is a minor point.
Taiji is a flashpoint of anger, conflicting views, and confusion between cultures, sub-groups of cultures, and generations. It's a clash of perceptions and worldviews and personal situations, of what people consider morally right and wrong, important and trivial. Conservation is essential to all our lives. But I think this is a conflict over specific people's lives, and their livelihoods. That’s the point I really wanted to make. I apologize for being unclear in my original post.
The simple fact is there is no justification for killing another living being unless its for your own survival! No excuses & certainly not tradition or making a living as acceptable excuses.
Slaughtering animals on a industrial scale isnt coexistence!
In Korea they blow torch the fur off of still living dogs before they eat them! Is that a universal theme? Is rounding up entire families of cetaceans & slowly butchering them in front of each other until the sea turns red with blood a reasonable way to behave. The mass sacrifice of cattle in India where each animal has its head hacked off a rational act?
The abuse of other sentient animals needs to be stopped it doesn't matter what you culture, race or religion is.
Blow torch? Really?
Sorry. Fair enough.
But as the article is implying, if you could see that, it's not all about you n being anon. Occasionally, morals n ethics emerge that are different to yours. But, I guess you already knew that as you cast aspersions on all n sundrie.
Thank you!! So well said and so true. We have to stop killing beautiful, sentient life on this planet!! Until we change this horrible way of living, we are just proving we are unfit to live on it. Dolphins don’t go around killing us for fun, or because they feel like it. why don’t we adopt a moral position as a species??
“As long as we have pressure from outside the country, the more determined Japanese people are to continue it,” Sasaki says. “It’s such an irony. If these activists just stopped pressuring Japan, the younger generation would not care about eating this and it would basically all go away.”
So the entire nation of Japan is like a moody little teenager with an authority complex? Great.
I am certain that the protesters studied the Japanese culture and tried to find ways to convince the hunters without breaking every rule of conduct in the Japanese culture... Oops, they arrived in droves and insulted the fishermen, tried to destroy their way of life just because they didn't like it, humiliated them (a huge no no in Japanese culture) and did everything they could to make the Japanese reject their orders.
Japan's version of Brexiteers or Trump voters.
You mean you actually weren't aware that the mass behaves like a brute imbecile and the individual a genius?
Don't you read?
I'm surprised that the media still go to Ric O'Barry for his opinions on dolphin welfare when he himself was prosecuted by the American government for abusing two dolphin he illegally released which had to be recaptured in an injured and malnourished state.
http://marineanimalwelfare.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_19.html
There is also absolutely no scientific evidence that dolphins or any other animals commit suicide.
http://marineanimalwelfare.blogspot.com/2012/08/do-dolphin-commit-suicide-in-captivity.html
As regards The Cove, there has been quite a few articles written as to why it is not the documentary it promotes itself to be.
http://marineanimalwelfare.blogspot.com/2012/08/drive-hunts-and-animals-acquired-for.html
Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing this film.
With you brother, we apologists need to stick together. Fight back with PR smarts, don't let their emotions take over our traditions.
I too look forward to this middle ground between reasonable slaughter and its absolute mindless butchery and Zen enlightenment.
All power to your arm pal.
From the mammal movie logic vault:
Babe - nice piggy, but nothing wrong with pork...
Bambi - charming deer orphan, but let's get some venison...
Flipper - a dolphin buddy, no way you can chow on that!
I can understand the frustration that must be felt when international attention/criticism is brought to a centuries old custom/tradition that happens in your local area but I do believe compassion is more valuable than tradition.
'According to an academic paper published in 2013 in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science titled A Veterinary and Behavioral Analysis of Dolphin Killing Methods Currently Used in the 'Drive Hunt' in Taiji, Japan, those killing methods involving driving a rod into the spine and using a pin to stop bleeding that is used by the Taiji Japanese creates such terror and pain that it would be illegal to kill cows in Japan in this manner. Several veterinarians and behavioral scientists evaluated the current Taiji Japanese killing method and concluded that "This killing method….would not be tolerated or permitted in any regulated slaughterhouse process in the developed world'
I don't agree with pointing the finger at the 'other' foreigner when we should look on our own doorstep. In the UK alone we kill over 1 billion farmed animals every year and some would argue that pigs are as equally intelligent as cetaceans but not so good as jumping high to head balls for the entertainment of the masses. How cute.
In fairness, I think there would be uproar if butchers were chasing pigs around a field with a spear inflicting multiple non-lethal wounds and subjecting the pigs to a long slow death.
Plus sparing the fastest ones and selling them off to be sent to "shows" for "entertainment".
It's true that there's so much to do in the UK first, but it's not like there's one organisation doing activism. There are plenty of UK based groups trying to tackle national issues. Sea Shepherd, on the other hand, was established for this very international purpose.
I think I can remember eating whale meat in 1945 in a `National' restaurant in England. Tell me I am wrong.
You are wrong.
You probably did, the UK had a whaling industry to, before 1986, when the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling.
It takes a lot to turn the stomach these days, but watching The Cove for me was close to watching uncut Al Jazzera in a Syrian war zone.
The sight of maimed, terrified dolphins, wracked with pain and twisted with spouting wounds trying to swim for help towards a none existent helping hand was truly sickening. The sight of the smoking, sneering "humans" in the boats, yen sounds clicking in their robotically economic eyes makes you despair for the degrading quality of so called human sentience.
You think thats bad, you should see where your meat comes from.
I'm going to guess OA is a veg*n. And yes you're right. I worked in a slaughterhouse and also have seen firsthand the conditions in a factory egg facility. I don't agree with Sir Paul's assertion that we'd all be veg if slaughterhouses had glass walls, but a whole lot more of us would be - that's for sure.
Japan's tradition of whaling can be preserved if they stick to their traditional methods - a bunch of blokes rowing a boat in an open sea with no communications, using hand-thrown harpoons for weapons. Let's see how traditional they really are.
Well said!!
Yep. And I may be wrong but I doubt the practice of selling to aquariums is steeped in tradition.
I agree - if its a cultural practice it should be a prerequisite. The same criticism should be levellee at Norway however - they like whale meat just as much
The Japanese don't seem to fathom that it's very hard to defend a cultural practice which is literally a bloodbath.
and a beef abatoire is essentially different how?
I'm sure you'll work it out if you look at the rules governing abbatoirs (chasing them round and randomly stabbing them to a long slow death probably isn't there), along with demand for each of the products.
Do a search about the abuses that go on in abbatoires & you'll find there's very little difference.
This is just hypocracy about those perceived as 'cute' animals.
Veggies & vegans are the people who can argue a moral high ground (& I'm not one).
There are places in the word where cows are considered sacred, but sadly, not in the US and most of Europe. It is all barbaric and unnecessary and "culture" doesn't excuse it.
Yeah - but bacon sarnies.
omg this is so original, HOW do you do it
I still recall that pungent, old whale blood+guts (death smell) of dead whales from the Bluff Whaling station, Durban in the late 1960s. Walking home from school with a N West winf full in the face it made me puke. The Norwegian run whale station closed in 1975. However, I still puke today, knowing Norway, Japan and Iceland still cull (their own quotas) of Minke whales + who knows what other species of whale; according to IFAW director, Iceland (Reyjavik) whalers still do exactly what they want, with impunity. Oh 3 cheers for UN + IWC. I assume the Norwegians + Japanese don't give a shit, either.
Nice to know whose who in the zoo.
"Scientific Whaling"?... my arse. Its banned, start listening. This would include you, Norway.
Norway has so many double standards it defies belief.
They do indeed. Screaming out about saving the Amazon here but getting lucrative contracts to be part of the destruction.
Sailors' note: Durban has 2 prevailing winds, (Nth Easter) -Sunny hot, and (Sth Westerly) - rainy, cold + (wet).
There are no Nth Westerlies- memory lapse over last 49 years to blame (!)
I was useless at fishing, sailing and surfing, but Durb's still a nice place to visit, if you stay 5* 'Umhlanga Rocks Hotel (Nth Coast) and/or a Toti hotel (Sth Coast) so I am (told). The old Edward***** hotel wasn't up to snuff, stayed at old Durban Club opposite PYC, Embankment; the Durban Clubwas ok, at a push, and if you a golf playing member,(watch for caddies), N Coast Road towards Umhlanga Rox).
British High Commission/Embassy/Consulate in West Street, still standing, last I heard. Locals have no work, saddens my heart.
Barracuda + Kingklip still on menu, at a price which requires your taking out a 2nd mortgage on the house.
Go fora 'Bunny-Chow' Sth Beach, if on a tight budget; take a minder, or three.
In my facebook feed earlier a video of a guy trying to catch a Marlin came on to my screen. The thing that struck me the most was the fact that that fish was fighting for its life to try and get away. Struggling and doing everything thing it could to survive. An animal that was literally trying to not die. More and more we are hearing and seeing stories of animals trying to escape while on their way to the slaughterhouse. You see the fear in their eyes as they are about to be shot or have their throats slit. A fear of dying. Then there was the Orca whale that carried her dead calf for 17 days. That mother mourned her dead baby for 17 days and over 1000 miles. Of course animals feel for each other. They also feel for us humans too. Any animal owner can tell you that.
Of course animals feel for each other. They also feel for us humans too. Any animal owner can tell you that.
You had me for a while and then I thought about how a fox feels for the chickens that it slaughters in a hen house or how a cat with a full belly feels for the mice and birds it kills after tormenting. Or how a Lion feels when it strangles a gazelle.
The fox is probably thinking it's hungry. As for cats it's a difficult one. Some of them go out in the vain hope that they can teach their humans how to hunt and be better providers. Have you ever had to deal with foxes and wild dogs that have gotten into your livestock? A bullet is pretty quick. You seem to be confusing survival with an excuse to continue your gluttony.
Or killer whales that hound whale calfs which they kill but then don't even bother to eat the meat.
It's terrible and disturbing, and I am absolutely against it. But how different is it from butchering cows or pigs? Have you seen documentaries about slaughter houses? It's not that different and should not exist either. It's easy to point at someone else, but let's look at ourselves first. Sadly we are not that different, we just kill different living beings. Our actions are just as horrific!
What made The Cove so disturbing was the 'selection' process. The high jumpers were saved to go on to thoroughly miserable lives for entertainment purposes while the rest suffered unimaginable slaughter. I saw earlier this week that Sea World's fortunes have turned upwards which is just disgusting. The documentary 'Blackfish' did a lot but obviously not enough.
I think we should respect their culture, as we do with Indigenous Australians (they are allowed to hunt endangered sea creatures). I wouldn't even mind trying the meat myself. It sounds fascinating.
Human slavery and cannibalism were 'culture' too. Should we have respected them too?
Perhaps we should respect the cultures that stone homosexuals to death?
Naw. I don't think so. Nor, if you actually gave the notion you just put forward any serious thought, would you.
That's actually not quite correct. In some parts of the world both are culture still. If I do judge culture I do so on its impact on others. In no way does eating dolphin harm other people.
<blockquoteA Whale of a Tale will open theatrically in New York>
What, with a bit of a song and a dance? Maybe waving its arms around.
I forgot the blockquote.
Perhaps we should have tried Sasaki-san's "laissez-faire " approach in America, regarding slavery. We might have avoided the Civil war.
I prefer that dolphins and whales are not killed for meat or captured for entertainment but the arrogance of these activists is really galling to me from Asian person's perspective. Having a white Western young girl telling a whole bunch of old men what she and her dad can do to bring the Japanese people forward is really a great method of persuading them to stop whaling!!! Luckily the Japanese people are polite, try to do that in any other East Asian countries like China and South Korea.
Oh yes, the Japanese were very polite when they invaded and enslaved those two countries.
They sure aren't polite to the dolphins.
China is jailing their own Muslim population and invaded Tibet, South Korean soldiers killed and raped civilian in the Vietnam war ,so what is your point? Yes, the practice needs to be stopped but yelling at people or belittling them, especially the people from cultures that place importance on keeping face, would surely result in the opposite.
"Better off bridging the cultural divide"? This whole thing sounds like the New York Times opinion section - and that's a bad thing, guys. It's complete bs to use the excuse of 'understanding the other side' when one side is *objectively* wrong. Next you're going to feature a "balanced" argument about child brides, aren't you.
Pig meat farming is wrong, humans are wrong and what is "objectively" in your view please?
It always puzzles me why "tradition" is considered sacrosanct. Tradition does not mean it's ethically above reproach. Human activity will always be challenged by one or another group and without this how can we change? Cannibalism? Territorial claims? Belief systems? Social mores? Traditions need to be challenged especially if they involve pain, death, suffering, etc of other sentient beings.
There's a quote - I think it's from Schweitzer - to the effect of, Tradition will accustom one to any atrocity.
“In Japan, people think humans are only part of nature and no animal is better or worse. It’s very puzzling for them when westerners say dolphins and whales are intelligent and human-like, because all creatures are special. What makes an intelligent animal, anyway? Birds can fly halfway around the world without GPS, isn’t that intelligence? We hand-pick the animals we like, like dolphins or elephants that we think are majestic, but we don’t pay attention to others that are endangered.” Yes. I feel this way and have no clue why western humans think so much of themselves when they are lazy and overweight and think they have the right to cruel farming and to burn fossil fuels and steal the land to farm for themselves. However the cruelty for unnecessary for needs to go and, in the west, this means especially pig farming. I see sausage and bacon being eaten by "civilised" humans, but they are not civilised at all! They are kind of evil. I see the evil when I see the ignorance of where the food comes from.
Human beings are descendants of bloodthirsty omnivores and every culture has its disgusting cruel practices. Multiculturalism is the attempt to get the different groups to tolerate each other's vile and repulsive cultural behavior. Whether we inflict horror and suffering and pain on one group of defenseless animals and protect and love another group is the result of our social conditioning as is being outraged by the different practices of other groups of humans than our own. C'est la vie.
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