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Introduction
Wednesday,
October 26, 2005 - Captive Dolphins held in deplorable
conditions
By Hardy Jones
I'm writing on the train to Tokyo on the way to investigate three facilities
in the city which hold dolphins in deplorable, even bizarre conditions.
It's raining in Tokyo as we head out to Shinagawa Aquarium - right in the
midst of one of the largest metropolises in the world. Another dolphin show,
same tricks. Two bottlenose jumping through hoops, twirling hula hoops on their
noses. It's a wretchedly small pool right under a highway overpass. Passing
trucks form the background of the stage.
We're here to trace dolphins taken from the capture at Futo last year. I
thought it would be very difficult but again luck turned our way. There was a
woman who stayed after the dolphin show. She seemed besotted with the dolphins
and ran along the side of the pool calling to them. Kagemusha spoke with her
and learned she came to the aquarium three times a week and thus knew the comings
and goings of the dolphins.
There are five dolphins at this facility. One is a male who appears catatonic.
He almost never moves and is kept in a separate pool behind the stage. Two other
dolphins are kept in a ridiculously small pool adjacent to the show pool. One
is named Ran and she arrived in January 2005 from Futo. The other is a half bottlenose,
half Pacific Whitesided dolphin named Hop. Hop's father was a PWS, the mother
a bottlenose (she has since died).
Next we head for a downtown hotel with a huge dolphin exhibition sponsored by
Epson (the guys who make the printers, etc.). This is a stunning thing. Entering
this modern building in downtown Tokyo, heading up escalators and down corridors
with pulsing blue lights. A full report on this in my next transmission.
Traveling through Japan and seeing the dolphin captivity facilities I am beginning
to experience the horrid reality of the huge international trade in these large
brained, sentient creatures. It is absolutely necessary to get personal about
this for me - to fully experience that the dolphins in those aquaria are living,
breathing fellow creatures - not statistics.
The other thing is to really experience and document how many dolphins are being
snatched from the oceans to be thrust into the entertainment business. It is
by going back to facilities like Ito year-after-year and seeing one group of
dolphins after another die, to be replaced by another set of dolphins the next
year that I can fully grasp the truth of this. I can document that the number
of dolphins ripped from their lives in the sea is not just the sum of dolphins
living in captivity. It is the number of dolphins that have died in the process
of taking them into captivity and the number that constantly die in captivity.
Next report - the high-rise mega dolphin show and a visit to Shinenoshima Aquarium
where there is at least one dolphin from Futo and one form Iki. IKI where this
whole thing started for me in 1979.
We arrive at a huge complex of offices, hotels and shopping.
It's 5:00pm and there are a lot of young people hustling
through the drizzle with cell phones pressed to their ears
and businessmen heading to an evening party at the dolphin
stadium. Once inside the high rise take the elevator to the
third floor of the Shinagawa Prince Hotel and after walking
through rooms full of aquarium tanks with brightly colored
tropical fish we finally emerge into an ampitheater called
the Epson Aqua Stadium. Yes Epson, the people who market
the printers and other high tech equipment so many of us
use.
There are at least twenty dolphins in the gleaming blue tank, about half bottlenose
and half Pacific white-sided dolphins. This is a huge number of dolphins. Imagine
if hotels and shopping centers continue to use dolphins as an attraction to bring
in shoppers or to be background to business get-togethers.
The show is a glitzy combination of lots of dolphin jumping, bright lights and
hard driving rock music.
I'm left with the troubling impression that the trade in dolphins is far larger
than anyone knows.
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