A Minke Whale is Brutally Killed in Taiji
On December 24th, a minke whale, the smallest of the baleen whales, became trapped in a series of set nets used by fishermen to catch fish, near the notorious town of Taiji, Japan.
Despite pleas by Japanese and international animal welfare organizations, on January 11th, fishermen tied the minke whale between two boats and held its head underwater for 20 minutes until the whale drowned. The minke whale had been trapped for twenty days without food.
The entire event was documented by Ren Yabuki, head of the Japanese Life Investigation Agency (LIA), who has stepped up to provide daily reports from the dolphin-killing Cove in Taiji.
Yabuki told the BBC:
My hand was shaking with upset - it was so, so sad. I had so much anger. I want to rescue the whale, to release. But I could not.
The brutal act was perfectly legal under Japanese law, displaying the problem with the loopholes in Japan’s environmental and humane laws.
Furthermore, Japanese law allows the killing and exploitation of “bycatch” – non-target animals that are caught in fish traps and nets. Minke whales are also regularly harpooned by Japan’s whaling industry, and the meat of the minke whale in the Taiji fish trap will go on sale in local markets. The bycatch quota for fishermen is 37 whales in Japan this year.
Most Japanese do not eat whale meat at all anymore, preferring fish, chicken, and beef to the strong taste of whale meat. Yet, due to support from the powerful fishing industry and local governments, whaling and dolphin killing continue to be conducted, still heavily subsidized and promoted by the Japan Fisheries Agency.
Japan left the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and commenced commercial whaling in July 2019. Previously, Japan stubbornly and illegally issued its whaling industry annual permits to kill whales under the guise of “scientific” research – the meat from the research whaling was sold to the public, although large quantities wound up frozen in warehouses due to lack of a market for the meat. The IWC passed several resolutions condemning Japan’s scientific whaling, and the International Court of Justice in The Hague found the whaling violated the provisions of the IWC.
In the past couple of years, many Japanese activists, like Ren Yabuki and LIA, have been showing up in Taiji town to witness and film the dolphin kills that occur from September through the end of February. The International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society first began the daily witnessing and filming of the dolphin hunts in 2009, when the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, featuring IMMP’s work in Taiji, was released. Recently, westerners have had a harder time going to Taiji – Japan has stopped activists from Sea Shepherd Conservation Society from entering the country altogether, and the current COVID-19 travel restrictions have blocked other outside activists from witnessing this year’s hunts.
In addition to documenting the hunts, Japanese individuals and groups have staged demonstrations against the hunts and the Taiji Whale Museum, which supports the capture and brokering of live-caught dolphins in the inhumane drive hunts. Most of the captive dolphins wind up in Japanese and Chinese aquariums.
According to CetaBase, this current six-month-long hunting season (Sept. 2020 through Feb. 2021) has a total dolphin quota for the Taiji hunters of 1,749 from nine different species. Most will be killed in a welter of blood for the market. Others will face a dismal future in small concrete tanks, doing tricks for the paying public.
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