Unfinished Business in #Taiji

Martin Luther King said, "In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends." 

It's been a while since I last blogged, more than 8 months in fact despite closing my last musing with this paragraph:

"I thought that I was fully prepared for the experience of actually being a Cove Guardian but I now know that nothing prepares you for Taiji, there is always going to be a surprise around the corner. One pleasant surprise has been the warmth and pleasantness of the Japanese people we have encountered and I have no doubt that as more and more Japanese nationals become aware of what is going on in this village of hell that we are approaching the start of a credible solution for this solvable problem. I will explore that much more fully in a day or two when I am in a calm place and able to focus on the positive. For now, please accept that there is a lot of positive and it does give great hope for the future."

Let me tell you that I thought I was fully prepared to continue blogging in "a day or two" but I just couldn't bring myself to push the "publish" button. Too many of my friends were still silent and it upset me too much to realise that.  I also found myself increasingly unable to calm down as I realised more and more that the only people who really understood the true horrors of Taiji were either still in Taiji or were other returned Cove Guardians and Cove Monitors all of whom were resident outside Scotland.  To date only two of us have traveled to Taiji from Scotland and we don't need to talk to each other about what is still happening there, we just need to look at each other to know. It is a dreadful place. It leaves permanent mental scars.

But it doesn't need to be a dreadful place. It could be a beautiful place sharing moderate wealth from eco-tourism amongst all three and a half thousand residents rather than its present status as a capture/kill machine concentrating extreme wealth in the hands of a greedy, murderous few. Meanwhile the remainder live on in that village in relative poverty and their children leave for University in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan, never to return. Why would they?

But I am returning. Very soon.

I do still have far too many friends who choose to be ignorant about what is going on. Far too many friends who can discuss the best way to play Candy Crush or buy stuff from each other for an imaginary farm in cyberspace but haven't got a clue what is really going on in the physical world. Far too many friends who are so consumed with their own importance that they think it worth sharing their latest achievements in [insert latest facebook game name here]. Far too few who are prepared to make any sacrifices at all to change the entrenched mindset in Taiji.

I do still know far too few who are willing to give up even the cost of a pint of lager to support those who might be willing to make personal sacrifice of their own.  To support those who are willing to accept divorce or redundancy or bankruptcy or to do whatever else it takes to stop the killings, stop the live thefts, stop the blatant barbarism and to drive and support whatever effort it takes to replace the captures and killings with something better.

To those who are and always have been supportive, I thank you. You are making a difference. the mindset is changing. Slowly for sure but it is changing and that change is gathering momentum.

There are now Japanese nationals campaigning in Taiji - a fabulous reward for years of investigation, education and intervention from some of the most courageous individuals I have ever had the privilege to meet.

Now is the time to add your own weight to that building momentum. Now is the time to make a difference.

Please support the Sea Shepherd Cove Guardian Campaign.

For Japan.  For the dolphins.  For us all.

Thank you for reading.

(Not) Leaving #Taiji

It is now 72 hours since I left Taiji, the first 30 of which were travel from Japan back to Scotland via France and Wales. I found it both interesting and very pleasing to note that 4 nations is still not as internationally diverse as an average Cove Guardian group.

In the just over a day since I got "back," I've been home, I've been to work, I've met some friends and I've even been to a funeral though thankfully as a work duty rather than through any personal connection. It should have felt like a slightly busier "normal" day. It didn't. It felt like I had abandoned the most important task of my life so far. It felt like unfinished business. It felt bad.

Watching Taiji Dolphin Defense on Livestream TV has not helped as there have been 3 hunts since we left, one where all the dolphins escaped, one where a mother and 2 babies were captured and one which is happening as I type this.

Those hunts and the dreadful aftermath will be future blog material for sure but they are just too raw to write about tonight.

There are three tasks facing me now:

Firstly making sense of the last month most of which was spent in Taiji. There have been some incredible high points, there have been too many desperately low points.

Secondly, I need to develop and implement a plan to engage with individuals, agencies and corporations who will be motivated both to ensure the best interests of Japan and to end the dolphin killings and captures in Taiji. Those dolphin killings and captures in Taiji clearly do not serve the best interests of Japan. If you are reading this blog and think you can help with that then please contact me via my Google+ page.

Finally I need to work out I can get back out there to continue this "unfinished business" and make sure that Cove Guardian is not just a nice slogan on a t-shirt, it is who I am.

Cove Guardians Anna Oliver and Nicole McLachlan

Perhaps I should have said 3 tasks facing us and used "we" instead of "I" for those 3 tasks because I have no doubt that my best friend and fellow Cove Guardian, Anna, will be as instrumental in helping to bring all this to fruition as she was amazing defending dolphins in Taiji over Christmas and New year. One thing that did make sense from the minute we got involved with this campaign was the need for mutual support on every step of the journey.

The emotions triggered by the experience of Taiji are so very strong and the impact so very personal though that I will keep my blog mostly about my impressions for the time being. Having said that, if my experiences have inspired you to get involved then you should recognise that the Cove Guardians are a growing and strengthening "we" and so there is no reason why you cannot also become a member of that amazing team of ocean champions. Cove Guardians come from every corner of the globe including Japan, could you be the first from your part of the World as Anna and myself were from ours?

In today's blog I am going to try and make some kind of sense of my initial thoughts regarding my Taiji experience, a starter for ten if you will because I do not think there are enough words to describe the full experience in a single attempt. Proof reading this I realise I have not managed it at all, it's going to take a long time to exorcise these demons if it can even be done.

I arrived thinking that the "story" was of some poor, impoverished fishermen claiming tradition as an excuse to murder what they reputedly describe as "big fish" with the occasional bonus of a live dolphin being sold to a dolphinarium generating a welcome cash windfall.

The truth was the exact opposite.

The Taiji dolphin drive hunt is an extremely well organised and ruthless, profit-driven and demand-led, live capture business with those dolphins not deemed worthy of being sold into captivity being butchered to squeeze every last penny out of that day's evil activities with no thought whatsoever to the morality of those actions.

The evil men who lead this programme are amongst the wealthiest individuals in this part of Wakayama whilst most of the rest of the town has an obvious and significantly lower standard of living than is generally evident throughout the rest of the prefecture.

This raptor is flying wild and free above the Dolphin Base
sea pens where live dolphins are held prisoner and forced
to turn tricks for spoilt tourists

Ignoring the poverty and ignoring the dolphin captures and slaughters (although it really is an impossible thing to do) we would have to view Taiji as a small, traditional fishing village with very impressive eco-tourism potential, not just from marine eco-tourism but also from the diversity of birds and land wildlife in the area.

The wildlife is amazing whilst the scenery is spectacular and, to me as a businessman, the ethical commercial opportunities are as obvious as it is staggering to see them being ignored.

As the fishermen of Taiji seem hell-bent on hunting dolphins to extinction whilst also wiping out every other species of fish in the surrounding oceans the end seems as inevitable as the end already experienced by countless similar traditional fishing villages the World over.

I spent my teenage years living and working on west coast fishing boats during the late 1970s and early 1980s at a time when we (Scotland) were fighting Iceland, Faroes and Norway over who had the most "right" to fish cod to extinction.

Juvenile hammerhead shark landed at Taiji butcherhouse

Of course we didn't know that is what we were doing then but it is now so very hard to understand why those same nations, my own included, are repeating exactly the same arguments and behaviours in the 2010s over mackerel.

I suspect if I had not escaped that lifestyle that I would still be on the boats, still too blind to see what should be plain to all but I have escaped and I now know the issues so there is at the very least a moral obligation on me to face those issues and do what I can about them. 

If I was still on the boats I also have no doubt that I would be amongst the poor fishermen wondering how a very few of our community had managed to get so rich whilst the rest of us just got poorer and more and more tied up with regulations. I would almost certainly have been trapped in the "us against the World" mentality that seems to be gaining the Taiji dolphin exploiters support which they absolutely do not deserve from their harbour neighbours.

Governments say it is all about jobs but it has seemed to me for some time that a combination of licensing more and more super-trawlers whilst also issuing licences to murder marine megafauna (cetaceans in Japan, pinnipeds in Scotland) to solve the problem of coastal community employment  is the marine equivalent of fighting a house fire with gasoline and that is what I spend most of my time lecturing about to anyone who will listen.

More wildlife at Dolphin Base, Taiji

In any case, it is clear that tourism - especially wildlife tourism - is the really easy, minimum investment solution to coastal community employment but it does require an element of "cleaning up your act" before it can be most heavily promoted.

That may explain why it is the most overlooked potential net contributor to GDP for my country, or at least the most under-recorded, or possibly it is simply because it is too hard for a politician to take credit for stuff that existed before the politicians started interfering with it to begin with.

I cannot help reflecting that in Scotland our Police would prosecute to the fullest extent of the law anyone who harmed a dolphin or pilot whale or any other wildlife, marine or land - although admittedly not licensed seal killers, see this blog for more info CLICK. They would prosecute both deliberate and accidental harm and that is only right and proper. In Taiji, the Police are obliged to protect those whose deliberate intent is to harm these magnificent animals both by lethal injury and by enslavement with all the subsequent harm which goes with that.

I thought that I was fully prepared for the experience of actually being a Cove Guardian but I now know that nothing prepares you for Taiji, there is always going to be a surprise around the corner. One pleasant surprise has been the warmth and pleasantness of the Japanese people we have encountered and I have no doubt that as more and more Japanese nationals become aware of what is going on in this village of hell that we are approaching the start of a credible solution for this solvable problem. I will explore that much more fully in a day or two when I am in a calm place and able to focus on the positive. For now, please accept that there is a lot of positive and it does give great hope for the future.

For now, thank you for reading.

Taiji, a town in trouble

If you saw the most recent livestream from Taiji where we took you on a walking tour of the town (link) you may have noticed something peculiar; we didn't feature any people from the town. Indeed, we went to great efforts to make sure we did not deliberately film anyone who was not there as a Cove Guardian.

Welcome to Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan

There were a number of reasons for this:

Firstly, straightforward courtesy. It is true that the dolphin killers themselves as well as their close associates treat us with absolute disdain but they number fewer than 50 in total out of a town population of around 3,500, a Prefecture population of around 1 million and a Country population of more than 127 million. So we are only talking about the tiniest of tiny minorities and everyone else in the town either pretends not to see us or else is friendly and polite towards us. We are happy to be polite and courteous in return as long as nobody expects us to compromise on our principles. We will not.

I am not naive enough to think that there will be any genuine friendships springing up in the near future but at least we have the basis for dialogue whenever the townspeople become sick enough of the killers in their midst to seek a new future for their town. Taiji has so much obvious potential if only it can stop the slaughter whilst also turning its back on capture for the despicable captive dolphin industry, aquatic circuses testimony to misery beyond human endurance and beyond dolphin dignity.

Secondly, we have been specifically asked not to photograph people directly without their permission by the Police who watch our every move.  Killers going about the business of killing are fair game for any camera that can see them - and wow do they ever go to extreme lengths to avoid that happening! - but general pics which others (not Cove Guardians) might use out of context to spread the "wrong" message are not.

Thirdly, there are simply not enough ordinary people around to take pictures of.

Taiji is in real danger of turning into a ghost town and that has nothing to do with Sea Shepherd's presence, it is to do with the nefarious business this town has been engaged in for the last 35 years or so, a timeline coinciding with the explosion of "Seaworld type" resorts in the USA and around the World. Please do not try and tell me that 35 years activity represents a generations-long tradition that has to be preserved at all costs, it is not.

Those people we do see are mostly old, many of them working well beyond sensible retirement age adding to the obvious signs that, apart from the very few extremely wealthy dolphin traders, this town is in desperate economic trouble. Towns in desperate economic trouble do not hang onto their young people. A vicious circle kicks in whereby the brightest and best escape to a better world elsewhere making it even less likely that the original problems can be solved from within and ensuring that the next year's school-leavers also follow in their big brothers and sisters' footsteps, leaving Taiji never to return.

No wonder; there is hardly any employment in this town not directly connected with the 2 dolphinariums neither of which would ever pass the welfare standards we take for granted in the UK.

Of course, we no longer have any dolphinariums in the UK for exactly that reason - it is simply not possible to construct an aquatic prison which successfully replicates the limitless world of freedom outside those prison walls. Human prisons offer their inmates greater social interaction, mental and physical stimulation than any dolphinarium could conceivably offer one of its inmates. Remembering also that these inmates were not guilty of any crime, they were simply unlucky enough to swim too close to Taiji where men in search of easy profit were waiting to pounce.

Employment for Taiji's young hopefuls in whaling is not an option, nor is membership of the fishermens' union which has exclusive rights to hunt dolphins unless they had the good fortune (for want of a better description) to be born into one of the controlling families who govern that vile pastime.

So for 35 years the ruling elite of this town has gambled its entire future success on an unlimited supply of live dolphins to a constantly expanding, worldwide, captive dolphin industry. And the currency they used for that gamble was a future for their youngsters.

If they had not attempted to hedge their bets with massive scale dolphin slaughter as a by-product, they might have got away with it, but as soon as the World became aware of that happening here the original gamble started to look shaky. As soon as volunteers from all over the World started to arrive here to protest the dolphin hunt, exposing both slaughter and captive trade  that gamble looked shakier still. Now that the word is spreading throughout Japan about the cruelty involved in both the gamble must surely be lost.

And the word is starting to spread throughout Japan.

School leavers from Taiji may be too deferential to their parents to openly criticise their choices but it is clear that they are "voting with their feet" and choosing to pursue a future which does not involve staying in this town to suffer the taint of greed and the symptoms of slaughter as their parents are. They are adding significantly to Japanese awareness of this issue from wherever they find themselves that isn't Taiji.

Even the police who follow our every move must be feeding back to their own friends and families (none of whom are from Taiji) just what is happening here. They are none of them stupid. They are all excellent judges of character and I have no doubt whatsoever that every one of them can tell the difference between right and wrong. The incredible embarrassment they must experience defending obvious wrong in the full glare of disapproving World opinion can only be another black mark against this town of shame.

I have commented in other blogs about how wonderful I have found the rest of Japan to be and how comfortable I am becoming around Japanese people. I have no doubt whatsoever that Taiji's problems can be solved by Japanese people when the dolphin drive hunts stop. I have even less doubt that Taiji's problems can never be solved by anyone - Japanese or not - unless the drive hunts do stop. Stop for good.

Thank you for reading.

101 Damnations

This is my first post as a Sea Shepherd Cove Guardian, having been in Taiji, Japan for just over 24 hours, partnering my very best friend Anna as a team from Scotland in support of this most important campaign.

It has been one of the most emotional full days of my life so far, and I do mean full!.

I had to laugh when I logged onto Facebook this evening and it asked me to review what it thought were "my" top 20 highlights of 2012. There can be little doubt after today's events that my top 20 most memorable events of 2012 will now happen during the next 2 weeks.

No one comes to Taiji under any illusion that it will be a holiday and that was particularly true for Anna and myself having had the benefit of first class briefings on what was happening and what to expect during the first day or so. We also had the benefit of excellent reporting on the Cove Guardians' Facebook Page and knew that in the few days before our arrival somewhere in the region of 200 bottlenose dolphins (the "Flipper" dolphins most prized by the captive facilities) had been hunted and driven into the Cove to await an uncertain fate.

We were told that dolphins netted into the Cove means we should expect one of 3 things: either capture and processing into a life of captivity performing tricks for the entertainment of the unaware, or, just as bad, slaughter to turn beautiful life into unwanted meat or, hope against hope, we might see them being released back into the wild from which they were stolen in the first place.

Today we experience all 3 and I am feeling completely wrung out.

Let me pause for a moment and tell you our experience of the Japanese people since arriving in Osaka and travelling South to Wakayama Prefecture - most famous for the Nachi Waterfall at Kii-Katsuura, a ten minute drive from where we are staying during our sojourn in this part of the World.

I only mention that because people seem to know all about the waterfall and lots of people have recommended that we visit it but nobody knows about Taiji and they find it hard to believe when we tell them.

Regarding the Japanese, we had been told to expect hostility from the outset. We had been told that, "[They] are cruel and callous."  We had been told that they hated foreigners. We had been told that they especially hated Sea Shepherd. None of this came from Sea Shepherd sources of course and I am not surprised because none of it was true.

Without exception we have been met with friendly smiles, pleasantries and courtesy of the sort that makes you feel so uncomfortable because you know you have never been as gracious to perfect strangers as the grace and dignity being offered to you. We have received gifts twice already as random acts of kindness from complete strangers in a land where gift giving is imbued with the greatest significance. We have seen hard-work and effort, courage and citizenship to the highest degree. We have even had our first interview with the police by torchlight on a cold and windy dockside in the small hours of the morning and that interview ended with smiles and laughter and best wishes for the day ahead.

I love Japan and I love her people. Well, almost all of Japan and almost all of her people, there is, after all, still the issue of Taiji and the Dolphin Drive Hunts. Not tradition, just a bloody, an oh so very bloody, excuse for extreme profit from extreme disregard of the difference between right and wrong. Not a Japanese trait, not an any nation trait, just a sad and all too common trait amongst evil, selfish and greedy men the World over, in this case they just happen to be in this country where I am still just a temporary visitor.

The evil men (and women) capturing and killing dolphins in Taiji have surpassed themselves in diabolical design this week, cynically attempting to win a propaganda coup with the release back into the wild of between 80 and 100 dolphins, perhaps hoping that no-one would notice the 23 bottlenose dolphins which earlier today they slaughtered for meat.

The full tally for the last week was 25 beautiful dolphins which transferred to the butcher's slab when you add the 2 which had earlier died by horrible drowning trapped in the nets of the Cove.

Most dreadful of all though has been the total of 101 bottlenose dolphins sold into captivity.

101 Damnations

Let me go straight back to the wonderful Japanese people we have met. Kind, generous, hard-working - extremely hard working - and, like kind, generous, extremely hard-working people the world over earning just about enough to cover the bills with not a lot left over.

Contrast them with the wealth that is now plainly evident to me as I have been moving around Taiji today and consider that 101 captured and sold into slavery dolphins could represent as much as $1 million per day for each of 6 days work and that will be shared amongst just 30 or so men and women.

I will be returning to the theme of captive dolphins a lot over the next few weeks because in just 1 single day here it has become crystal clear to me that the dolphinarium industry is THE problem at Taiji, not any kind of "traditional" indigenous means of putting food on the table for an otherwise starving family. That isn't and they are not.

I also need to get my head round the dolphin trainers - men and women from all over Japan and beyond who stood by watching whilst 23 dolphins were ruthlessly, bloodily and noisily slaughtered.

Dolphin trainers who then dragged their own live prizes through the blood fouled waters to start earning a return on their investment in the marine parks which paid their expenses for this mission of evil.

I can't write about that at the moment, I am still too shocked at their calculated refusal to acknowledge any sort of moral responsibility by the very act of participation in a bloodbath such as the one we were forced to witness.

Following today's events my emotions are still all over the place but I am trying so desperately hard to bottle my anger at the theft from their families and from the wild of those 101 dolphins, temper my rage at the cold-blooded and wholly unnecessary murder of 23 dolphins from that same family, suppress my fury at the pointless and avoidable deaths of 2 more members of that dolphin family in the nets which were used to hold them all in the killing Cove and instead try to ignite the spark of comfort from the remaining 80 or so dolphins who we saw swim to freedom this afternoon.

I think that is the happy thought I would like to end this blog on today.

Thank you all for reading, thank you all for your support.

Haiku for Taiji

Evil men killing

My heart bleeds as dolphins die

Stop it. Stop it now!

More Haikus for Taiji at the end of today's blog.

The blood of a pilot whale slain in Taiji, Japan
Picture courtesy of Sea Shepherd Cove Guardiians

Taiji, Japan, is a place of horror. A place where they butcher several thousand dolphins and small whales every single year.

If you are reading this then you probably know that already. Therefore, the task for us all now is to spread the word as far as we possibly can because as anyone who has seen The Cove knows, the one thing the dolphin killers of Taiji fear most is exposure, "If the World finds out what we do here, we will be shut down..."

Every day this task becomes easier as Sea Shepherd's amazing Cove Guardians discover more and more innovative ways to get the message out to those of us who are desperate to offer support of our own, providing videos, pictures and commentaries for us all to share as far and as wide as we possibly can.

Here is a great example of just that:

Regularly our onshore volunteers and other supporters come up with other innovations of their own so today's blog is dedicated to Steve Jack (follow him on Twitter here) who came up with #Haiku4Taiji (clickable link) as another string to the ocean defender bow.

There is never going to be "THE" solution to the problem of raising awareness about the horrors taking place every day in Taiji but there are many, many "A" solutions. This one got popular, it got popular real quick and its popularity continues to grow. I hope this blog will help it grow again and I truly hope that between us all we manage to open even more eyes amongst a disbelieving public about just how awful Taiji really is.

I can't copy all of the Haikus for Taiji, there are many hundreds but do please click on the link above and see for yourself how powerful this initiative has been. And do please tweet some of your own adding the hashtag #haiku4taiji  If you have never written a Haiku before here is a useful guide How to Write Haikus

Meanwhile, here are some of my favourites from the last month on Twitter:

@stevejack3

Peace now dolphin souls
Still and deep, flying from those
Who bring harm; deal death

@stevejack3
When they've gone, what then?
Oceans die slowly leaving
A blue cove ~ bereft

@stevejck3
Tonight it's too hard
Tears and words spilled and dried yet
Guardians endure

@SeaShepherdScot

Dolphins wild and free

Exactly where they should be

Not dead in Taiji

@SeaShepherdScot
The Taiji Livestream
Keeps me awake at night
But I have to watch

@frenchmix
They watch and mourn
Breaking hearts make stronger wills
Brave guardians of the Cove

@FeeScott
Hunters on the prowl
Death and murder on their minds
Conscience they have none

@WeManifestPeace

Dollars for dolphins

Children squeal; audience claps

They don't know the truth

@WeManifestPeace

Skiffs in formation

Early morning procession

Taiji's wake of shame

@WeManifestPeace

News reports protests

War, injustice, poverty

Dolphins need your voice

Dolphins need your voice.

Thank you for reading.

Risso's No More

Today's blog is dedicated to the beautiful Risso's Dolphin (Grampus Griseus), the largest Dolphin species with the word "Dolphin" in its name.

I haven't been blogging this last week. I have wanted to. Day after day I have logged in ready to pour out my heart but day after day I have logged in and gone straight to the Cove Guardians page on facebook to see what has happened in Taiji while I have been sleeping. This week I have wanted so much to pour out my heart - this week my heart has been ripped from me.

Cove Guardian Nicole McLachlan

Nicole, who is actually on the ground in Taiji and not just viewing from afar as I am for now, has poured out her own heart in her report of the week up until 5th December here, Operation Infinite Patience: December 5, 2012 and as well as her powerful words, there are videos on that link that you should see.

As I read her report I came to this comment, "It was on December 2nd that the most horrific display of greed played out before our eyes. All of us Cove Guardians, who were present during the three days that followed, will never be the same."

I knew what the rest of the report was going to be about because I had followed it frame by horrible frame on Taiji Dolphin Defense TV. I am sorry for not blogging but no words of mine could soothe that pain, it would not have been therapeutic for me, it would not have been good reading for you.

If this is all new to you then please follow each of those 3 links in turn and make sure you know what is happening in 2012 in the World that we share. If you won't take the time to follow the links then please read my November blog, #Taiji or Head in the Sand instead.

From speaking to close friends, some who have already been in Taiji as Cove Guardians and others who have flights booked and are just about to go, as I will be doing soon, I know that we all read those notes in numb disbelief. Little could any of us have realised that it was about to get even worse.

Photo Courtesy Sea Shepherd Cove Guardians,
Slaughter of 7th December 2012

The Today in Taiji report from December 7th began,

"A pod of 15 Risso's Dolphins were hunted and slaughtered within the cove this morning.. They frantically fought against the dolphin killers' deafening boats and terrifying walls of nets- all were killed for human consumption as none were 'suitable' enough to spend their lives entertaining humans in the captive trade."

Risso's are an amazing species of dolphin and one of the largest if you exclude Pilot Whales and Orcas. They span a wide range of ocean habitats between 60° North and 55° South. In Scotland -  where I spend most of my time - we see them alone or in small family groups of up to 20 although there are reports of mega-pods of Risso's 100+ in number.

These beautiful creatures grow up to 12 feet in length and can live to at least 30 years old. As long as they stay away from Taiji.

Slaughtered Risso's Dolphins

If you have seen the film The Cove you will know that the Taiji fishermen claim that they kill every dolphin caught - but not sold into captivity - as "pest control" because they have been told by their Government that the collapse of wild fish stocks is nothing to do with man and his insatiable appetite for ever larger and ever more effective fishing programmes.

Somehow they have convinced themselves that if you kill every dolphin and whale then somehow, magically, the nets of their pelagic trawlers will be full to bursting on every haul. This "scientific wisdom" coming from a nation which has contributed so much to genuine science!

Even if that was true for some species (it isn't) then it most certainly does not apply to the Risso's which prefers a diet of squid, octopus and cuttlefish which they catch and swallow whole. Have another look at the picture at the top of this blog, those scars did not come from a mackerel encounter!

This diet already puts the Risso's in severe danger from mankind, specifically from mankind's most destructive invention: the plastic bag.

Post mortems on squid eating cetaceans such as Risso's Dolphins and Sperm Whales regularly reveal that the animal had nothing in its stomach other than plastic bags. Not a nice way to go and, although they can dive to depths of over 1 kilometre and can remain below the surface for up to 30 minutes, Risso's are believed to eat mostly at night when squid rise closer to the surface - guess where plastic bags float?

I once had a "half in fun, whole in earnest" dig aimed at me on a facebook post asking why, if whales and dolphins were such hyper-intelligent creatures, how could they not tell the difference between a squid and a plastic bag? My response was even simpler:

If we are such hyper-intelligent creatures how can we not tell the difference between right and wrong?

To all those Risso's Dolphins who lost their lives yesterday in Taiji's killing cove I am sorry my fellow man lacks the humanity that you should be entitled to take for granted. We will remember you swimming wild, swimming free, swimming far and swimming deep.

Thank you for reading.

#Taiji or Head in the Sand

The first person to put about the story that ostriches bury their heads in the sand to avoid thinking about "bad stuff" was Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, just over 2,000 years ago.

I can't help wondering if any of my throwaway comments in here will be the stuff of urban legend in the year 4,012? Unfortunately though, the uncomfortable secondary thought to that is what will human society 2,000 years from now think about all of us. Will human society even still exist? Is it our responsibility to ensure that it does or should we just stick our collective heads in the sand about that one as well?

Just in case anyone doesn't yet know, ostriches don't actually bury their heads in the sand, certainly not as a defensive mechanism anyway, but the metaphor is still nevertheless a good one. Here's the funny thing though, it is such a negative accusation that we all think it applies to everyone else, never to us. And yet, so many of us bury our heads in the sand in so many ways so much of the time.

We refuse to acknowledge danger to ourselves. Or perhaps that is just a refusal to acknowledge that our actions will have consequences.

We refuse to acknowledge harm to others. That is clearly a case of acknowledging that our inactions will have consequences. Consequences we would not like to be publicly responsible for and so we - as a species - seem to find it ridiculously easy to practice denial as a way of life rather than a very occasional, easily explainable anomaly. For far too many of us it is the rule, not the exception.

Stop reading now if you think that might apply to you!

The two BIG "hiding our heads in the sand" actions though relate to fooling ourselves about what or who we are. Convincing ourselves that we care but being unable to explain why, if we really do care, we have done nothing to help change the problem. Perhaps even when we clearly have either the physical means to do so ourselves or the financial means to help others do it for us.

But we still tell other people that we "care" even as we tell ourselves, convince ourselves, completely fool ourselves, that we are something we are not. Something better than we really are. Awarding ourselves private accolades that we would find damn near impossible to justify to an informed outsider.

I used to do that. My ability to effect change - or enable others to do so - used to vastly outstrip my genuine desire to do so, even as I preached to others what a better world it would be if only "they" would do something about [insert cause célèbre here]. It took me a long time to work out that I was one of "they" and so I hope in reading this you are now starting to work out that you are also one of "they" a good deal faster than I did.

Let me get back to head in the sand and the 2 big ones.  They are:

Refusing to accept that if we have the ability to stop that harm and/or the means to support others in doing so that we have at least a moral obligation to take action.

And:

Refusing even to talk abut it because we find it all too upsetting and then going for a drink to cheer ourselves up / blot out the mental images whilst ignoring the fact that booze money could have been better spent on positive action to stop you ever having to worry about those mental images again. Alcohol has been described as "temporary suicide" and I more and more understand that description.

Let me talk to you about Taiji.

Taiji is a coastal village in a beautiful part of Japan, a tourist destination similar to many coastal villages the World over, including my own native Scotland. Taiji has a strong connection to historical whaling. It even has a whaling museum for visitors to spend their money in. Hey, I'm not going to criticise that, I've already visited the whaling museum in Boston, MA.

What I am going to criticise is that, whilst whaling is considered reprehensible in Boston, in Scotland and everywhere else where people consider themselves civilised, they still murder whales in Taiji. Smaller whales than they murder in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary but whales nonetheless. And dolphins. Dolphins by the thousand. I am not exaggerating, many thousands of dolphins have lost their lives in Taiji's killing cove in the last few years alone.

Risso's Dolphin - Mother and Child
Picture Credit Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit, Scotland

Yesterday morning, the evil fishermen of that region (evil because I must differentiate the tiny minority of whale killers from the vast majority of wonderful, friendly, decent Japanese people who themselves would be disgusted by this if only they knew) herded a family of Risso's Dolphins into the killing cove and slaughtered every single one.

I do find it very hard to type about this story. I do find it very hard to contemplate how a fellow human being could harm such wonderful animals. I find it even harder to understand why it is only 30 or so evil people doing this but many millions of others who are aware it is happening and choose to bury their heads in the sand about it. Oh, they may wring their hands in an outward display of angst, they may post message after message after message on facebook or sign yet another petition which will achieve the same result as all the others before (if you do the same as you have always done how can you possibly expect different results!) but they are not actually DOING anything about it.

Risso's Dolphins Slaughter, Taiji 19th November 2012
See full Cove Guardian picture file here LINK

A few. A very tiny few have either gone to Taiji already, are going in the very near future or have donated money to help someone else get there. I suspect that tiny few are very definitely amongst those who have read this far in today's blog and so I thank you from the heart. For those who have yet to DO something please listen to my earnest call to action.

I am going to Taiji. I am also donating to help others go. I am doing so because I am sick and tired of feeling totally helpless when I see images like this. I need you to do your bit as well.

If you are determined to go then you already know how, if you don't then message me and I will give you all the extra info you need.

If you cannot go for whatever reason then please can you help? I am okay thanks, I do have the means to get myself there, but I need help for another soon to be Cove Guardian, Anna. She has already committed so much for the defense of our wonderful ocean wildlife, please will you follow her link and commit even just a few dollars more to make sure you can tell the World that you did not stick your head in the sand, that when it mattered, you stuck your hand in your pocket and made a difference.

Anna's Taiji campaign link is here: CLICK TO READ ANNA'S STORY AND DONATE

Thank you for reading.