Secret film will show slaughter to the world
Covert operation finally expos Taiji's annual dolphin horror
自动换行快捷键马蹄的做法By BOYD HARNELL
Special to The Japan Times
For the first time ever, graphic feature-length footage of the annual slaughter of some 2,500 dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, has been captured during a unique yearlong covert operation.
The cret filming by members of the U.S. conrvation group Oceanic Prervation Society (OPS) — equipped with state-of-the-art technology and financed to the tune of $5 million by Netscape founder Jim Clark — is being turned into a major documentary feature film destined for worldwide relea this summer (although distribution in Japan is at prent not certain).
普通话作文The story of how this film of the barbaric killing and subquent butchering of dolphins was made — together with the resulting sale of their meat that massively exceeds Japane and international limits for mercury content — is told here, exclusively, for the first time anywhere in print.
萨克斯十大名曲
The footage of the annual ven-month dolphin "drive fisheries" (as they are known in Japan), and of the brutal practices involved in them — as well as the complicity in the killings by various dolphin trainers and officials from Taiji Whale Muum — is sure to shock the world. But whether Japane people themlves will be able to e the film and arrive at their own conclusions is still by no means certain.
The annual dolphin slaughter at Taiji, a town with a population of some 3,500 in the beautiful Yoshino Kumano Kokuritsu Koen national park, follows a regular pattern.
First, hunter boats from the Taiji Isana Union (numbering at most 13 skiffs, with two crewmen each) head out to a and surround pods of dolphins or pilot whales (which are actually large dolphins). Then they drive them into a "capture cove" by banging on long m
etal bell-ended poles placed in the water to disrupt the dolphins' sonar, causing them to become completely disorientated and panic.
After the animals have spent a night suppodly relaxing in the netted-off capture cove (in an attempt by the whalers to make their meat more tender), they are driven to the neighboring "killing cove." There, behind huge blue tarps strung across the cove to keep prying eyes away — in much the same way that Japane police cordon off crime scenes — the dolphins meet their gruesome predawn end.
It is a gory spectacle that Taiji has long striven to keep anyone from eing — and one that is crucially fueled by the lucrative, worldwide dolphin captivity and display industry. Aquarium operators, some of whom have claimed to be saving dolphins' lives by lecting a few as performers, pay up to $150,000 per animal.
The brutal lection process, though — as shown in the OPS footage — caus many of the highly intelligent marine mammals to die of shock or drown.
Meanwhile, cruelty apart, the government-sanctioned slaughter is widely condemned by Japane scientists, activists and a few Taiji officials, who all cite the rious health issues related to consumption of the dolphins' mercury-tainted meat.
One of the officials OPS filmed was Taiji City Councilman Junichiro Yamashita, who organized certified tests on local dolphin meat bought from retail outlets in the town. The shocking test results revealed mercury and methylmercury levels that were 30 and 16 times, respectively, above advisory levels t by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. As a result, Yamashita hastily distributed newsletters to Taiji residents warning them to avoid consuming the meat — which he called "toxic waste."
Although a massive blackout of this long-standing butchery of small cetaceans is aided by an apparent lf-impod boycott of the subject by Japan's vernacular and other English-language media, this newspaper has published a 2 1/2-year-long ries of expos that have won it two international press awards from the Humane Society of the United States.
Now, though, the focus is on the meticulously planned $2.5-million covert operation — the cost of which is estimated to double by the time of the film's projected relea in June.
From their ba in Boulder, Colorado, the OPS group made six trips to Wakayama Prefecture, where they were constantly followed by local police and stalked and harasd by Taiji "whalers." Despite this, their mission was successful. Their high-tech film gear was covertly inrted in the "killing cove" and extracted 16 times thanks to the efforts of the film's assistant director, Charles Hambleton, and three members of the OPS team. Their hidden, high-definition (HD) cameras successfully recorded the horror that unfolded behind Taiji's blue tarps. And what they saw was beyond their belief.
马赛鱼汤Captured dolphins were filmed writhing in pain as Taiji whalers speared them repeatedly or cracked their spines with spiked weapons. Stricken dolphins are also shown thrashing about wildly, blood pouring from their wounds until they finally succumbed. Meanwhile, a number of dolphin trainers and officials from the Taiji Whale Muum are shown cooperati
海藻颗粒
ng in the slaughter — some even laughing — as the killing cove's bloodied, ruby-red water swept round into the adjacent capture cove.
