Regardless of the time or place we happen to live, our society will be characterized by a number of generally accepted principles regarding what is or is not acceptable. Within our cultural context, there will be a certain point beyond which an act will be met with revulsion and rejected by most people. Thus the cultural landscape you happen to live in will, at any given point in time, have evolved to have incorporated a set of norms for what is deemed ethically tolerable. Fortunately, that tends to trend in a positive direction over time. Year to year changes may appear neutral, or oftentimes even negative. But century over century there’s no question that the cultural zeitgeist moves towards the positive.
That said, the general level of what most people find acceptable can differ considerably from one place to another, at any given point in time. With the recent focus on Japan and the Olympic Games, I’d like to suggest to you that when it comes to the treatment of whales and dolphins, that line is placed much further out than it is in most other countries with a similar level of economic development. I have no theory to explain why, but the evidence is abundant that this is so.
Let me state right at the outset that a lack of concern for animal welfare will never be a universal characteristic in any population – not in Japan or anywhere. There are heroes and villains in every country and culture. What determines the general level of cruelty a society will find acceptable is very difficult to say. I suspect history and historical circumstance may provide most of the explanation. In any event, it’s worth thinking about what it is in ourselves that determines where we draw the line.
What provokes that immediate visceral reaction, even when confronted with something you’ve never encountered before, when you know with certainty that the action before you is unacceptable and repulsive? Also, given whichever society you happen to live in, it’s valuable to look for that point where you recognize most of you will know right away that ambivalence is not an option. That the line has clearly been crossed. And then to wonder, should that line be redrawn somewhere else?
No country has attained a perfect record for any length of time, but let’s say we were to pick one where the track record is definitely much better than most. One such country would undoubtedly be the present-day United Kingdom. What’s interesting though is that if you stepped back only a few hundred years, to Elizabethan England of the late 1500’s, you’d find yourself at a time when extreme cruelty was the norm. See yourself standing with carnival crowds howling with laughter as a cat is tortured to death for your amusement. Not an England you would recognize today, but for many of us those would be our recent ancestors.
So obviously things change over time, and they will continue to do so everywhere. In the meantime, we all need to look in the mirror and to keep ourselves aware of the horrors that persist in our own countries. (A horrifically cruel commercial seal hunt on our east coast, and abysmal livestock transport laws being good examples in my home country of Canada.) But that doesn’t absolve us of the need to speak out against cruelty anywhere we see it, whether inside our borders or beyond. For those of us whose focus is humankind’s treatment of cetaceans we cannot ignore what happens on the beaches of the Faroe Islands, or the travelling circuses of Indonesia, or in the cove in Taiji, Japan.
In 2021 Japan, we have very a long way to go indeed.
The dolphin drive-hunts in Taiji will resume in less than a month. The primary economic driver of these is the lucrative trade in live captures for the entertainment industry (though many countries, including the US, have banned the import of dolphins taken in drive hunts). Dolphins will also be killed for their meat, which will be sold throughout Japan, and even fed to children. This is entirely surprising when you realize that levels of mercury and methyl mercury in meat from the Taiji hunts exceeds Japan’s own regulations by an incredible 12 times. Anything exceeding the legal levels has to be reported to the government ministry in charge of fishing (yes, dolphins fall under that jurisdiction!). So we know that the government of Japan is aware that highly contaminated meat is being fed to Japanese kids, and is sold throughout the country.
(We urge all of our readers to support a campaign being run by Action for Dolphins, a first-rate organization born in Australia, aimed at getting this contaminated meat banned. For months they’ve been collecting data, consulting experts, and collaborating with lawyers to build a case. They’re hoping to have their criminal complaint filed before the hunts start again on Sept 1st.)
Now why would the government of Japan be so beholden to commercial interests as to overlook the extraordinary cruelty taking place under the tarps in Taiji, or in Japanese territorial waters aboard their whaling vessels, all while the world watches aghast? Why ignore the obvious, dangerous public health violations from the sale of toxic meat? And why continue to support whaling with subsidies when demand for the products of that industry isn’t sufficient to make it economically viable on it’s own? Allow me to speculate.
First, to be clear, many countries, including mine, support immoral industries that otherwise might flounder without taxpayers’ help. There’s no interesting insight there, and Japan isn’t unique in that regard. But I think we get a better understanding of what drives Japanese politicians when we get a glimpse of what the public is prepared to tolerate. In other words, where they are prepared to draw the line. Two examples, both of which really break my heart whenever I have to write about them.
Hope the minke whale and how he or she died
Last Christmas Eve this young minke whale (we never learned the gender) got trapped in a set of fishing nets which are left in place year round just outside the harbour in Taiji. Unable to find a way out, without access to food, and while the world watched, it was 19 days before there was any kind of intervention from the Taiji Fisheries Cooperative. No one in authority felt compelled to act, possibly because no laws appeared to be broken. When humans finally took the trouble to arrive on the scene, it was not to bring help. The whale’s tail was tied to the edge of a boat with rope, and it was hung upside down. Drowning came about 20 minutes later, and while the whale thrashed about so violently that blood splattered all over the side of the vessel, its obvious suffering provoked no compassion in the men present. Some could be seen laughing while doing their work.
Here is an account from Dolphin Project. Warning: this is very difficult to read, and the footage hard to watch.
There are laws against cruelty to mammals in Japan, and it’s doubtful that what passes for acceptable livestock transfer in Canada would be legal there. But cetaceans have long been misclassified and fall under the fisheries ministry, as mentioned. What happened to this minke whale was completely in accordance with Japanese law. What’s more important however, is that if this terrible scene had played out anywhere off the coasts of North America, it is 100% certain that public anger would have been intense, and there would have been a political price to pay for any politician who failed to act. For whatever reason, that this particular treatment of a whale is wrong has penetrated the public psyche in one part of the world, but not in another.
OK, so while the above is true, North America is nevertheless still a place where Tokitae (Lolita) can spend 51 years in a pool less than four of her body lengths long, and so shallow that it doesn’t adequately protect her from the Florida sun. Yet, no-one in authority has seen fit to intervene on her behalf. Here in Canada, Kiska has lived in complete isolation from any others of her kind since 2011, and despite her obvious suffering and despair it’s only now that we have some hope that authorities may put an end to it. Truly awful examples of injustice, and we of course have work to do here in North America.
The last years of Honey’s life
I’m convinced that the case of Honey, a bottlenose dolphin held at the Inubosaki Marine Park Aquarium, just east of Tokyo, illustrates a step beyond what any jurisdiction in North America (or practically anywhere else) would be prepared to let go. The conditions she was subjected to are so devoid of compassion or empathy that it’s difficult to believe it could actually happen. After the aquarium was closed, Honey spent two years with nothing to do but swim around a featureless concrete tank, completely alone except for the person who would come to feed her. This is unimaginable neglect and cruelty. Pleas on her behalf and offers of assistance poured in, as of course the world took notice, but her owners were unmoved. She died alone after two years of this. The despair she had to be experiencing throughout this time is unforgivable.
No one in authority in Japan felt the need to intervene on her behalf. What it would have taken is that a sufficient proportion of the public would have spoken out, forcefully enough that authorities would have been afraid not to act. Unfortunately, this was not the way it went. The law was on the side of her owners, and public anger was not what it needed to be to push back against that. The circumstances of the final years of Honey’s life were not enough to provoke that visceral reaction in enough of the Japanese people. It wasn’t enough to cross the line.
Fortunately, there are real heroes in this story. I have enormous respect, and endless admiration for our allies on the ground in Japan, people like Ren Yabuki, and many others. It takes a remarkable courage to speak out as they do, whether on the streets of Tokyo or outside the entrance to the Taiji Whale Museum, in the face of such extraordinary levels of apathy about the treatment of cetaceans from their fellow citizens. Not to mention the harassment they’re routinely subjected to from police and others in authority.
Their courage and dedication is inspiring to all of us around the world working to push the moral boundaries to where they need to be, wherever we happen to live.
For The Orca’s Voice,
Anna, Canadian Cetacean Alliance
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