Yoko ono's letter against the japanese traditional capture and slaughter of dolphins

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YOKO ONO'S LETTER AGAINST THE JAPANESE TRADITIONAL CAPTURE AND SLAUGHTER OF DOLPHINS



TO THE JAPANESE FISHERMAN OF TAIJI
FROM YOKO ONO LENNON, 20 JANUARY 2014.

Dear Japanese Fishermen of Taiji,

I understand how you must feel about the one-sided-ness of the West to be angry at your traditional capture and slaughter of Dolphins. But that tradition was made only when the world, and Japanese Fishermen did not know what it meant to do harm to the Dolphins. I'm sure you have heard so many speeches in which all of these things have been discussed. So I will not bore you with it.

But I think you should think of this situation from the point-of-view of the big picture. Japan has gone through such hard times lately. And we need the sympathy and help of the rest of the world. It will give an excuse for big countries and their children in China, India and Russia to speak ill of Japan when we should be communicating our strong love for peace, not violence.

I am sure that it is not easy, but please consider the safety of the future of Japan, surrounded by many powerful countries which are always looking for the chance to weaken the power of our country. The future of Japan and its safety depends on many situations, but what you do with Dolphins now can create a very bad relationship with the whole world.

The way you are insisting on a big celebration of killing so many Dolphins and kidnapping some of them to sell to the zoos and restaurants at this very politically sensitive time, will make the children of the world hate the Japanese.

For many, many years and decades we have worked hard to receive true understanding of the Japanese from the world. And, because of our effort, Japan is now respected as a country of good power and ingenuity. This did not happen without our efforts of many decades.

But what we enjoy now, can be destroyed literally in one day. I beg of you to consider our precarious situation after the nuclear disaster (which could very well effect the rest of the world, as well).

Please use political tact and cancel the festival which will be considered by the rest of the world as a sign of Japanese arrogance, ignorance, and love for an act of violence.

Thank you.

Yoko Ono Lennon
20 January 2014

cc Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

 

[MIST]

Dolphin-Killing Season Ends Early in Taiji
This year, cove fishermen killed 834 dolphins. An additional 164 were taken captive, destined for marine parks.

The long, bloody killing season in Taiji, Japan, is finally over. The hunt ended this week, earlier than usual, with a record-low number of dolphins killed in the cove amid intensive opposition from celebrities, activists, and the U.S. ambassador to Japan.

According to Sea Shepherd’s Cove Guardian campaign, the dolphin slaughter area has been cleaned out and the tarps that hide the butchering from public view have come down. The tally is gruesome: An estimated 1,400 dolphins were driven into the cove this season, in drive hunts made famous by the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. Of those animals, an estimated 834 were killed and 164 taken captive. The rest were released.

This marks a decline from last season’s figures, in which roughly 900 dolphins were killed and 250 captured for aquariums and marine-themed parks. The numbers, disturbing as they are to opponents of the inhumane practice, are well below those reported before the 2009 release of The Cove, when the tiny village’s fishermen killed about 1,600 dolphins a year.

So is the tide turning in Taiji? It’s a difficult question to answer, as the Japanese government and Taiji’s dolphin killers remain determined to carry on in the next season, which will begin on Sept. 1.

Still, this season brought a tidal wave of public outrage and protest outside Japan unseen since the documentary was released in 2009.

The backlash gained mainstream media momentum on Jan. 17, when the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, just two months into her job, tweeted against the slaughter. “Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing. USG (U.S. Government) opposes drive hunt fisheries,” she tweeted.

The tweet, which followed the roundup of 250 bottlenose dolphins in the cove, was met with strident condemnation from officials in Tokyo and Taiji but won strong support from the U.S. State Department.

"We are concerned with both the sustainability and the humaneness of the Japanese dolphin hunts," State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters five days after Kennedy’s tweet. "We have been very clear that this is our position, and we remain concerned about it. And the ambassador was expressing our view that we’ve made public for a long time."

That same week, news broke that a rare albino bottlenose, a female calf that activists dubbed Angel, had been captured in the cove. The calf, whose mother was killed for her meat, captured the hearts of people around the world and gave even more impetus to those opposing the dolphin drives. Angel is being held in a tank at the Taiji Whale Museum, and her fate remains uncertain.

Then, in early February, the English-language newspaper The Japan Times became the first major Japanese media outlet to condemn the annual drives. “The dolphin hunt is an inhumane practice that should be stopped,” the newspaper said plainly. It was a shot across the bow for the Japanese government, putting it on notice that the tides may be changing in the country when it comes to killing dolphins.

But the bad news was not over for Taiji’s fishermen. Just after the Times’ editorial ran, a group of marquee celebrities, spearheaded by music mogul Russell Simmons, penned a letter urging President Obama not to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal until Japan bans the slaughter and capture of dolphins in Taiji.

"I'm glad our letter to Ambassador Kennedy for the president is making the rounds and will hopefully get our own government to do what they can to help stop the senseless, cruel slaughter of dolphins in Taiji," Simmons told TakePart.

Activists have plenty of work to do. Japan is still involved in killing minke, fin, and humpback whales in the Pacific Ocean and has resumed hunting Dahl’s porpoises some 500 miles north of Taiji in Iwate, an annual slaughter that was temporarily stymied by damage from the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

For now, Taiji’s cove is peacefully blue, at least until next September, when activists in Japan and around the world will unfailingly take up the banner of outrage once again.

http://www.takepart.com/article/201...ds-taiji?cmpid=tpanimals-eml-2014-03-01-taiji

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