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.

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.

Smiling for Sea Shepherd

I was once told by a very good friend that the opposite of Happy is Very Happy.

What a different world we would all live in if everyone thought that way.  What a BETTER world we would all live in if everyone thought that way.

Sooner or later it happens to us all, we end up with the blues.  For those of us who volunteer in ocean conservation and the protection of marine wildlife that cycle of despair seems to be an even more regular occurrence   There always seems to be more people working harm on the planet than people working to repair the harm and even fewer working to stop the harm being caused in the first place.  But, dear reader, that can only be a perception, a glass half-empty view if you like.  And those of you who know me well will also know that I don't do half-empty.  I don't even do half-full.  I approach life with the view that my glass has whatever it has in it and from that point on if it is to be, it is up to me.

So how do you burst a cycle of despair?  How do you get rid of the blues?

Well, the big trick I learned was never to ignore the things that are causing the despair in the first place.  My "despair" this week has come from the extreme, clear and present threat to Whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary from the Japanese Whaling Fleet and the almost daily slaughter of dolphins and pilot whales in Taiji's infamous killing cove.  There are other atrocities happening around the World but those two are uppermost in my mind as I type this.

Of course if those things went away then I would be happy, but me being happy will not be enough in itself to  make them go away. If I am happy, though, then I am much more mentally prepared to do whatever needs must be done to add my own contribution to ending these horrors.

So to beat the blues I use those events that in the past might have caused me long-term despair as my REASON to find the core of happiness that lets me move forward.  And then I add to that core with the knowledge of what others are already doing to combat those wholly unnecessary evils on this planet.  I find the silver linings in those horrible clouds and add my own polish to those silver linings.  From my metaphors above, I am filling my glass up - adding to what is already there. I am also making myself aware that there are more working to stop harm and to repair harm than any of us realise.  A lot more.

Here is what has taken my blues away this morning:

Today the first ships set sail for Sea Shepherd's Operation Zero Tolerance (if I was filling up a real glass I would have needed a bigger one to add all of the Happy that news brought).

I also took that as an opportunity to reflect on why we do what we do and so my second BIG happy this morning came from this video, another Sea Shepherd video, explaining Why We Defend the Oceans.

Please enjoy and please remember, the opposite of happy is very happy.  Let me take your blues away...