Exclusive: Inside the Empty $12.2 Million Taiji International Cetacean Center

Photography by Kunito Seko

Text By Mark J. Palmer

Taiji, Japan, location of the notorious Cove where hundreds of dolphins are slaughtered annually in the bloodbath depicted in documentary, The Cove, opened the Taiji International Cetacean Center in April.

Cost of the new Center, shouldered by Japanese taxpayers, is approximately 1.8 billion Japanese yen ($12.2 million dollars US).

About a week ago, Taiji resident and activist Kunito Seko visited the impressive building, toured it, and was surprised how empty it was. The vaunted Taiji Intl. Cetacean Center looks like a glass-sheathed haunted house just five months after it opened.

As stated in Japan Forward: “The town's vision is to transform into an academic research town. It hopes to attract domestic and international whale researchers for collaborative studies and research initiatives. In short, Taiji aims to stimulate community revitalization centered around the International Cetacean Center.”

The Center’s stated purpose is to provide a space for research on whales and dolphins. However, the main purpose appears to be to bolster both dolphin killing and whaling, as both industries continue in Japan but at very low levels. Taiji leadership also envisions the Center as a tourist attraction, although how that is going to work is unclear.

The town already has the large Taiji Whale Museum, which includes exhibits about whaling, sells whale meat in the gift shop, and features captive dolphin shows, using dolphins originally ripped from the wild. Whaling and dolphin-killing industries actually don’t at all break even, and both are heavily subsidized by taxpayers in Japan, including the taxpayer-supported Taiji International Cetacean Center.

The new Center in Taiji boasts meeting spaces, offices, a library, theater, laboratories, etc. All were very empty when Kunito visited.

The Center also hosts a Taiji office of the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR). The ICR is a Japanese government research organization based in Tokyo, which promotes whaling and conducts research. Most global cetologists consider the ICR to be duplicative and unnecessary in researching whales through lethal means. Such studies can be better conducted by noninvasive cetacean research, but the Japanese government and whaling industry control the ICR and ensure the “research” favors killing whales.

There is vague talk from the Center researchers using drones to find dolphins for the dolphin killers of Taiji and about conducting genetic studies of cetacean bodies brought in by whalers and dolphin hunters.

One avowed goal is to encourage Japanese people to eat more whale meat.

Despite the Center’s recent opening, there are already signs of deterioration.

How long will this white elephant continue to promote the Japanese war on cetaceans?

Perhaps the new Center could be turned to noninvasive study of whales and dolphins in Japanese waters, ending the slaughter of whales and dolphins in Taiji for good? Instead, the Center lies empty, and the dolphins and whales are still dying.

Time for Taiji’s leadership to rethink their bloody history and chart an ethical course into the future, one where they live with whales and dolphins instead of hunting them.

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The International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) of Earth Island Institute supports activists in Japan and around the world working to end the slaughter of dolphins and whales, curb plastic pollution, restrict entangling plastic fishing gear that entangles and harms marine life, and end the confinement of dolphins and small whales in captivity who face a lifetime of misery in small concrete coffins.

Your donation helps end the Taiji dolphin hunts. Since the inception of our Save Japan Dolphins campaign, critical support from dolphin lovers like you have helped to dramatically reduce dolphin deaths in Taiji by 77%. Thank you for your support!