Exploring the cove
I’ve just finished watching ‘The Cove’ and suggest you do too. Unless you have seen the controversial Academy Award-winning documentary already, in which case you’ll probably agree that herding thousands of dolphins into a secluded cove in Taiji, Japan, before harpooning them to death is both brutal and unnecessary.
Taiji, in Wakayama, is often regarded as the birthplace of Japanese whaling, with evidence revealing coastal hunts as far back as the 1600s. The picturesque small town boasts various monument to cetaceans, including a rather grand whale museum, as well as restaurants serving both whale and dolphin meat. Every year, Taiji fishermen herd more than 20,000 dolphins into a small cove where representatives from all over the country wait to select a small amount for the world’s marine parks and aquariums. The remaining dolphins are moved to the now-infamous cove for slaughter. Due to increasing international scrutiny, the shallows of the cove are now largely covered by bright tarpaulins, which merely highlight the sea of blood beyond.
Despite testing dangerously high in mercury levels (hello jeremy piven!), Taiji dolphin meat is distributed to shops around Japan (above right, selling for a mere 200 yen per cut) and quite often falsely labelled as other seafood or whale meat to increase sales. In their defence, the Taiji fishermen are quick to assert that their catch is well within IWC limits, which may have led the activists to focus on the issue of mercury in the meat, rather than the barbaric manner in which the dolphins are killed.
With a trailer that’s more spy thriller than animal rights crusade and ongoing distribution problems in Japan, it’s quite easy to dismiss the film as some sort of anti-Japan propaganda flick. There’s been all sorts of responses which question the accuracy of the film’s claims, but no-one can doubt the vivid red sea, nor the footage of dolphins flailing in the shallows while blood trails behind them.
One Japanese new report shows a rather unbiased look at the cause and the foreign protesters, after which a commentator declared:
There is a clash between culture and emotion.
I fully understand the desire to maintain cultural traditions, but after viewing the film, the activists should probably play on Japanese emotions and seek wider support from within Japan itself. More so than just one man standing in the crowded Shibuya crossing with a tv screen showing the atrocities, they need to make Japanese youth aware of what happens in Taiji and ideally, inspire them to take action. Casting aside the ongoing issue of ‘scientific’ whaling, Japan is, after all, the same nation that bestowed residency on Tama-chan, a bearded Arctic seal that turned up in Tokyo’s Tama River in 2003. By appealing to the country’s love of cute creatures, there may be some way to maintain cultural traditions while finding a more humane solution to the culls. …Hell, anything would be more effective than this two-minute celebrity-filled PSA which, while great in theory, pretty much just preaches to the choir:
Although when Tony Soprano tells you his friend doesn’t belong in captivity, you can’t help but want to do as he tells you…
If you don’t have time to watch the film, try photojournalist Boyd Harnell’s chilling article from 2007, Eyewitness to Slaughter in Japan’s Killing Coves, which reads much like the film unfolds, or check the Guardian’s photo gallery.
Photos: Dolphin meat from Aisha_n, Meiji-era whalers from Julian Cochrane. Robert Gilhooly has a wealth of Taiji photos here.
