This Porpoise Slaughter Is Seven Times Bigger Than the Cove’s, So Why Haven’t You Heard About It?
September 19, 2013
David Kirby
Every year for the past decade, volunteers from around the world have made a pilgrimage of protest to Japan, home to the eight-month bloodbath of whale and dolphin slaughter in the cove at Taiji. That hunt began again this month, and all eyes are on the infamous inlet—now more than ever—thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove.
But even as activists, scientists and movie stars rail against the brutal massacre of highly social and sentient animals, few campaigners know that some 500 miles to the north, in Iwate Prefecture, an annual slaughter of a beautiful species called Dall’s porpoise has been taking place in numbers that dwarf anything found at the cove.
Operating somewhat under the radar of public opprobrium, Iwate has traditionally staged the largest cetacean hunt on the planet. That is, until the 2011 earthquake and tsunami eviscerated Iwate’s coastal towns and destroyed much of the porpoise-hunting fleet.
For a while, it looked as though the hunt was gone forever, perhaps the only silver lining in a dark cloud of devastation. But now TakePart can exclusively report that operations somehow managed to resume last season, though on a much smaller scale, with a few hundred porpoises taken.
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http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/09/19/porpoise-iwate-japan-hunt-bigger-than-cove-taiji-japan?cmpid=ef-reddit
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If the radioactive pollution is anything close to what's been suggested
by certain posters here then there will be a delightfully poetic follow-up
as the people who keep this "trade" alive will be poisoned by their folly.
> Iwate has traditionally staged the largest cetacean hunt on the planet. That is, until
> the 2011 earthquake and tsunami eviscerated Iwate’s coastal towns and destroyed
> much of the porpoise-hunting fleet.
Any silver lining that arises from such devastation would be welcome (i.e., the destruction
of the boats rather than the innocents who had the misfortune of being in the same place).
Just a shame that it didn't destroy the entire fleet.
