BlueViews - The BlueVoice Blog

Introduction

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - Japanese Police Inquiries Continue
By Hardy Jones

The police thing here has become like a Peter Sellers movie. Every day the local police call the Riokan where I am staying to inquire about my activities. The very patient owner, Mr. Mizuno, tells them, quite truthfully, that he doesn’t know where I go during the days. I've suggested he tell the police I'd be glad to come visit with them, as I have nothing to hide. By the way, this guesthouse or Riokan is one of the loveliest places I've stayed in Japan. Mr. Mizuno speaks English and his wife prepares the most extraordinary food. He can also link guests to the local whale and dolphin watching operation run by Mr. Ishii. http://www.minamikaikisen.com.

We set out yesterday to track the traffic of dolphins from the drive hunt at Futo in November 2005. I want the world to know what happens to dolphins when they are taken into captivity. And I want people who see what look like smiling dolphin faces in the dolphinarium shows to know how those dolphins got from their home in the sea to these hideous locations.

We arrived at Awashima after a long train ride and found an enclosure with four dolphins, two in one netted off area, two in a separate netted area. As we were trying to determine which of these dolphins had come from Futo via Ito (see Oct. 24 Blog) a trainer arrived and began to talk openly with Kagemusha.

He explained everything without prompting - where each of the dolphins had come from, their sex, their health. He pointed out one dolphin with a jagged dorsal fin and identified it as the one that had come from Futo via Ito. They have named this dolphin Mack. At Ito he was named Gonta. Though I imagine the name change doesn't mean much to him. Before capture he would have had his own proper name developed around his signature whistle. I stood there picturing what the experience of this dolphin must have been. Cruising with his family at sea, getting chased into Futo harbor, being ripped from the panicked members of his family and pod, placed on a truck, shipped to Ito and then pulled out of there and sent to Awashima where he is now being trained to do shows and eat dead fish. His life has been taken away from him - all the excitement and challenge of living in the sea, the social bonds of the pod, the emotions of maturing and becoming a senior member of the pod. All this is gone in exchange for a boring routine of performing simple tricks and begging for food.

Down the road from Awashima is Ito Mizo Sea Paradie. Paradise for whom I don’t know. Certainly not the dolphins. There were eight bottlenose dolphins in one section of the main enclosure, which is rather large as these things go. In the middle section is a killer whale, one of those taken from Taiji in 1997. For more info on this.>>> Three of the five orca taken from a pod of ten have died.

We watched as a trainer tried to get Asuka, as they have named her, to do her show. But she just hung in the water begging for food and then disappearing for long periods underwater. To me she seemed very lethargic and unresponsive. The trainers told us an interesting story about Asuka. When she was moved from Taiji she came with a bottlenose dolphin who had been her friend in the early days of her confinement. The people who traffic in dolphins know enough to realize that strong bonds of affection exist among podmates and even between one cetacean species and another. But they apparently don't care that their work involves inflicting hideous cruelty on these animals they claim to cherish. They don't get or don't want to get that chasing these dolphins down, ripping apart the social groups and sending the young of the pod off to captivity is brutally cruel.

So just take a moment and remember Asuka, now in her eighth year of confinement. Imagine the boredom and terror she has endured.

Next stop Tokyo at one of the most perverse dolphin captivity scenes anywhere.

back to the top