In a major blow to the Taiji dolphin slaughter, depicted in the Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove, a Japanese court in Wakayama Prefecture has ruled that the Taiji Whale Museum, owned and operated by the town government of Taiji, discriminated, in violation of the Japanese Constitution, against Westerners. Western supporters of ending the local dolphin slaughter seek entry to assess the status of captive dolphins held in the Museum that are caught in conjunction with the bloody drive hunts.
Sarah Lucas, CEO of Australia for Dolphins (AFD), joined with her father, the late Alastair Lucas, in bringing the lawsuit against the Taiji Whale Museum when they were forbidden entry to the Museum, being shown a cardboard sign that “anti-whalers” were not allowed into the Museum. This violates the Japanese Constitution, according to the court, because the Museum is open to Japanese people without constraint. AFD was awarded 110,000 yen (about $972 US). Japanese lawyers for the Taiji Whale Museum did not bother to attend.
The International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) supported the lawsuit with donations and provided written statements from IMMP volunteers who had similarly been blocked from attending the Museum to check up on dolphins caught for a life of captivity while all their relatives are butchered for meat.
“This win proves the Taiji Whale Museum, the institution at the heart of the dolphin hunting trade, behaved illegally,” stated Sarah Lucas of AFD. “It also shows the Taiji dolphin hunts are not above the law, which means the Japanese legal system can be used to end the cruel dolphin hunts for good.”
“The Taiji Whale Museum is the world’s largest broker of captive dolphins, caught in the bloody dolphin drive hunts,” noted David Phillips, Director of IMMP. “We are extremely pleased that the court found the Taiji Whale Museum in violation of Japanese law. It is time that this so-called Museum stop lying to the Japanese public about their insidious role in the slaughter of dolphins that occurs just around the corner from the Museum.”
The lawsuit was initiated in part in support of Angel, an albino bottlenose dolphin, who was swimming in the Pacific Ocean off Taiji in January 2015 with her mother when dolphin hunters ripped her from her mother’s side and her pod. Her mother was killed in a mass slaughter so violent it made global headlines, and prompted US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy to declare the US government’s opposition to the Taiji hunts.
Angel is now a highly-valuable “freak” show on display in a tiny, filthy tank in the Taiji Whale Museum. Eyewitness’s report she often floats lifelessly, or swims in small distressed circles, much of the time with her eyes closed. She is also attacked by several other dolphins kept in the same tank.
“With this legal victory, we hope to press more legal action against the town of Taiji and their inhumane immoral dolphin killing,” added David Phillips.
