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Introduction

Monday, October 24, 2005 - Japanese Police make inquiries about our arrival
By Hardy Jones

It’s 4am. I’m wide awake from the jet lag. We have arrived at Futo. The first thing I learn arriving at the Japanese guest house where we are staying is that the police have already been there asking about me. Why would the police care about someone being in town who might report on the killing of dolphins? Well, the only conclusion I can come up with is that they’re all in it together – the fishing cooperative, the Japan Fisheries Agency, the national and local governments. There are powerful forces supporting the drive hunt on dolphins.

And who reported my arrival to the police? I have suspicions but won’t say anything until I get corroboration. One reason for that is that captured bottlenose dolphins have now become big money. Those captured at Futo in November 2004 sold for between $3,500 and 4,000 dollars each. Aquariums took fourteen. That brought in more than $50,000 for local fishermen.

But think of what the loss was to the dolphins. Fourteen of their members taken away forever, five died in the process of removal for captivity, five killed for scientific research (really for sale as meat), the pod terrified and in shock and then released. It seems there should be a kinder way to make $50,000. And that figure is a gross income sum. It does not factor in the cost of capturing the dolphins, the boat time, the gasoline to run the boats. This seems very little money for such horrid destruction of life.

We have obtained a secret document indicating the government wants to expand the dolphin hunts to take Pacific Whitesided Dolphins. This species has not yet been hunted. I think this policy may have to do with a realization that bottlenose dolphins have too much value to slaughter for meat. They also are planning a major increase in the number of dolphins they will capture live for aquariums. This international traffic in dolphins is huge and growing.

And a further twist – since the capture and killing of dolphins at Futo last year no dolphins have been seen in the waters off Futo. None. Why they are not here is a mystery we hope to unravel.

Late this afternoon we went to Ito Harbor to the Dolphin Fantasy dolphin swim-with program. I first went to this abomination in 2001. One of the dolphins there was called Ami-chan (“chan” is roughly the equivalent of “dear”). There were three other dolphins. I returned year after year to Ito harbor and found Ami-chan alive, swimming in circles in a small sea pen. There were two dolphins with her but they were recently acquired from Taiji. The dolphins that had been with Ami-chan the previous year had all died.

And so it continued through 2003 and 2004. Ami-chan surviving and new dolphins in the pen to replace the ones that had died. Again in the fall of 2005 I have found Ami-chan, alive and apparently healthy. Now swimming with two new dolphins recently taken from the hunt at Futo last November. She has outlived perhaps 16 other dolphins, all of which perished in the filthy waters of Ito harbor. I cannot deny that I was happy to see her doing well, even in some hideous conditions. But I am deeply saddened to think what her life in the wild would have been had she not been captured and thrown into this hell hole.

We returned to our Riokan to find the police had again called inquiring about my presence. I have invited them to meet with me. We’ll see what happens. In the meantime we head off tomorrow for Awashima where several dolphins from the November, 2004 hunt at Futo were taken.

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