The Cove

Ric O'Barry and others who hope to see a stop put to the annual Taiji dolphin hunt feel that it is wrong to kill dolphins because they are extraordinary animals. Like humans, they are intelligent, sensitive and gregarious creatures which have exhibited altruistic behavior by helping individuals in distress, even going outside of their own species to aid other marine mammals and even humans. They also feel that the way in which dolphins are killed in Taiji's annual dolphin slaughter is intolerably cruel and inhumane.

What opponents of dolphin hunting emphasize more than anything else is the dolphin's intelligence. In a recent study, zoologist Dr. Lori Marino claims to have found convincing evidence that dolphins are indeed the second most intelligent species on the planet, eclipsing even chimpanzees. But after reading about her research, I was left with the impression that her findings are based more on wishful thinking than concrete evidence.

Dr. Marino and someone who has looked as this issue from an ethical rather than a scientific angle, Professor of Philosophy Thomas White, the author of In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, were featured speakers at a session of the 2010 AAAS conference entitled, "Intelligence of Dolphins: Ethical and Policy Implications." Dr. White, who is interested in the moral implications of how man treats dolphins, believes that dolphins should be regarded as "non-human persons." He writes in his book that:

"The potential of the dolphin brain to support higher order functions is critical to our investigation because, for most humans, 'intelligence' is the great divider between 'humans' and 'animals.' Many humans think that we're the only intelligent beings on the planet, that we therefore deserve special treatment at the hands of one another, and that we also have the right to treat other living things virtually any want we want to."

Prof. White believes the dolphin brain does indeed have "the potential to support higher order functions" and that dolphins therefore "have fundamentally the same grounds for moral consideration as humans do."

I don't find this line of reasoning convincing. For one thing, if we are going to grant certain species human rights based on their level of intelligence, how do we determine where the line should be drawn between "intelligent" species which it is morally repugnant to kill, and species whose inferior mental faculties make them fair game to be slaughtered and served up for dinner? Another problem I have with claims about the superior intelligence of dolphins is that they seem to be based more on a Western cultural proclivity to idealize dolphins than on objective facts; and, even if it's true that dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures on Earth, it doesn't follow that their intelligence is of the same order as human intelligence. Even so, the idea that dolphins and whales possess a level of intelligence comparable to that of humans has been popular in the United States at least since the 1961 release of physician, psychoanalyst and psychonaut John C. Lilly's book, Man and Dolphin: Fascinating Adventures on a New Scientific Frontier. Lilly considered dolphin communication sophisticated enough to be called a "language." Here's a quote: "All of these various acoustic concepts (and many others) in some way or another must be used in the dolphin's construction of his language...It seems to me that this can become a sort of Rosetta stone for proceeding on an analysis of 'dolphinese'."

The great American humorist, James Thurber alluded to dolphin intelligence in his Lanterns and Lances, also published in 1961. Though satirical, I think the following quote shows that this idea of the dolphin's superior intelligence has a fairly long history:

"How sharper than a sermon's truth it must have been for many human beings when they learned that bottle-nosed Dolphins may, in time, succeed battle-poised Man as the master species on earth. This prophecy is implicit in the findings of those scientists who have been studying, and interviewing, dolphins in laboratories. It neither alarms nor surprises me that Nature, whose patience with our self-destructive species is giving out, may have decided to make us, if not extinct, at least a secondary power among the mammals of this improbable planet... As far back as 1933 I observed a school of dolphins (their schools increase as ours decline) romping, as we carelessly call it, alongside a cruise ship in the South Atlantic, and something told me that here was a creature, all gaiety, charm, and intelligence, that might one day come out of the boundless deep and show us how a world can be run by creatures dedicated not to the destruction of their species but to its preservation."

I love Thurber. But, getting back on topic: to me, that the strongest argument against superior dolphin intelligence is that they are so easy for humans to catch. If dolphins really are so smart and such great communicators, why do they not cease to come anywhere near the vicinity of Taiji? The fishermen in Taiji sometimes let dolphins go. Why haven't those freed dolphins warned all their brethren to stay away from "the cove"? Anyway, I'd like to end on a positive note, so I'll leave off this discussion with a quote from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy :

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

If translated literally, the Japanese (and Chinese) word for dolphin, iruka, means "ocean pig." That fact suggests that dolphins have traditionally been viewed as a food source in East Asia. At any rate, the consumption of whale and dolphin meat has a long history in Taiji, going back 400 years (actually though, the tradition argument is a weak one considering that the hunting of cetaceans in Taiji predates the founding of Harvard University by less than 50 years. 400 years ago is a far cry from antiquity in a country as ancient as Japan).

Most Japanese find it hard to understand why it's O.K. to kill cows and pigs for their meat, but it's not O.K. to kill cetaceans for the same purpose. Having said that, the Japanese are just as charmed by dolphins as any other nationality. In fact, "swimming with wild dolphins" is a popular activity for tourists on Miyake Island, located about 180 km south of Tokyo. Also, until The Cove focused attention on the issue, very few Japanese were aware that dolphin meat was eaten in Japan. Just a couple of years ago, when I brought up the subject of the Taiji dolphin hunts with Japanese friends and acquaintances, most of them had never even heard of the town itself. The most common responses were, "What's a Taiji?" and "Japanese don't eat dolphin."

The Cove's Oscar triumph has put the Taiji dolphin hunt on the radar screen of everyone in Japan, but the usual reaction to foreign condemnation of the practice is just as emotional as the Western reaction to the hunt itself: angry and indignant. The Japanese don't want to be told what they should and shouldn't eat. I think that's quite natural. It's important to remember that the dolphins that are killed and captured in Japan are not endangered species, and that they are hunted in a sustainable manner.

The same logic really should apply to whales, I think. Endangered species should of course not be hunted, but if a species can be hunted sustainably, I don't think objections on emotional or cultural grounds are reasonable. One thing that is little known outside of Japan is the respect with which Japanese whalers have traditionally treated their catch. Interpreter Shigeko Misaki records the following exchange between an American government representative and a Japanese Buddhist priest in a 1993 essay called, Japanese World-View on Whales and Whaling :

"I have had the experience of accompanying three U.S. Congressional Staff on a visit to a small coastal whaling town called Ayukawa to observe the situation affected by the whaling moratorium. In this town, the Americans met with small-type whalers in their humble homes and were than taken to a Buddhist temple where the priest, the Reverend Kawamura, showed them "Kako-cho" (the registry of the diseased people) in which whales caught by the small-type whalers are listed along with the humans.

The Reverend Kawamura explained that in Buddhism, the whales are but one form of living creature passing through one phase of transmigration of the soul. The whales which have served the livelihood of the townspeople so well are listed there in KAKOCHO, so that they might live in the next phase of life in a higher form such as a human.

At that meeting with the priest, one of the Americans asked if the high intelligence of whales means anything in Buddhism. The Reverence Kawamura answered, "Intelligence has little to do with the basic dignity of a living form. In Buddhism, we regard all living things with equal dignity. Even if a person is mentally retarded in this life, his basic dignity is not flawed. I know some people are less intelligent than others, but all are equal in their basic dignity."

Japanese journalist Katsuichi Honda makes the following comments in an essay he wrote regarding the 1980 case of Earthtrust president Dexter Kate who was arrested for releasing 200 dolphins from the nets they had been corralled into in Nagasaki Prefecture. During the course of discussions with Kate's supporters, Honda made the following points:

"Whether this distinction [superior intelligence] between dolphins and other animals is valid or not, a more important issue is why no question arises on killing animals of lesser intelligence. Why can we slaughter cows with no problem? The activists provided no justification to explain less-intelligent animals' destiny, while they rationalized that cows can be controlled as livestock and therefore we can slaughter them. I asked them whether we can domesticate dolphins and then slaughter them. Their response was in effect that this would be pathetic and barbaric. Their argument is not logical but rather emotional, deeply rooted in their own history and culture.

For those born and raised in Western culture, dolphins and whales are animals that frequently appear in ancient Greek or Roman mythology. A comparable animal in India is the cow, which is regarded as sacred and has never become livestock for slaughter and consumption. Thus, the difference in cultural or historical background is significant...I asked them what they would think if Indians went to ranches in the western United States and liberated cows."

I think that the points Rev. Kawamura and Mr. Honda make are valid. That doesn't mean that I view this as a one-sided issue though. As I mentioned earlier, there are both good and bad points on both side of the debate--with the bad points being driven by emotion rather than logic. The Japanese tend to react to criticism of their nation's hunting of whales and dolphins (and even bluefin tuna) with emotion and nationalism. This is certainly due in no small measure to the one-sided treatment these topics receive in the local media. Not too long ago, the Japanese media was blaming a rise in the price of bluefin tuna on the popularity of sushi in foreign countries. That's a strange claim to make considering that Japan consumes about 80% of the world's bluefin tuna catch. And speaking of the Japanese media, what Ric O'Barry says about there being a virtual news blackout of the Taiji dolphin hunt is true, that is before he brought attention to the issue. I think it will suffice to say that emotionalism and unreasonableness exist not only on the Western side of the debate.

I feel sure that this picture would make Ric O'Barry very angry. He objects not only to the killing of dolphins, but also to their being made to entertain people with tricks at sea worlds and dolphinariums. Ric O'Barry famously trained the dolphins for the popular '60s T.V. show Flipper, which probably did more to popularize the image of the friendly, intelligent, helpful bottlenose dolphin in the consciousness of the general public than anything before or since.

One day, one of the five dolphins used in the Flipper series swam into Ric O'Barry's arms and quietly died. O'Barry says about the incident, "That was on Earthday 1970, about that time, and I walked away from that industry and never really looked back." He also says about the business of making money from dolphins kept in captivity that, "I feel somewhat responsible because it was the Flipper T.V. series that created this multi-billion-dollar industry."

Like an ex-smoker who can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke, Ric O'Barry has become a vociferous opponent of the industry he helped to create. He's been working to free dolphins shutdown the captivity indstry for the last 40 years. Rather surprisingly, he had never been to Taiji until 2002, but once he made his way there, he was appalled by what he found.

He has been to Taiji a number of times since, and gotten to know the place well. I think he has a good point when he points out that, for all the talk about tradition, there is big money being made in Taiji from the sale of attractive dolphins to sea worlds, mainly located in various Asian countries--hardly a traditional business activity. He describes the selection process this way: "They're captured and sent to different dolphinariums all around the world, and the ones that are not selected are slaughtered." He explains that while one of the government sanctioned dolphin hunters can get from $300 to $400 by selling a dolphin for its meat, the dolphinariums will pay him from $100,000 to $200,000 for a live dolphin.

O'Barry has so far been unable to stop the Taiji dolphin hunt, but he has succeeded in another of his objectives, which to raise awareness of the dolphin slaughter among the Japanese public. Until The Cove shone a light on it, very few Japanese knew anything about what was going on in Taiji. In fact, if you had asked an average Japanese before all the recent publicity whether dolphin meat was eaten in Japan the response would most likely have been an incredulous, "No, of course not."

The increased media attention given to Taiji has been good in at least one way: it was a big factor in bringing the Taiji town council to reverse its insane and misquidedly nationalist policy of including dolphin meat in school lunches. O'Barry helped to focus media attention on the campaign of two Taiji Councilmen to have dolphin taken off the school lunch menu after they found alarmingly high concentrations of mercury in the meat from dolphins and pilot whales caught in the Taiji dolphin hunt.

O'Barry stresses that he has no quarrel with the Japanese people, or even the residents of Taiji. What he opposes is the Japanese government's policies toward the hunting, sale and consumption of dolphins. He convincingly refutes the claim that Taiji needs the dolphin hunt for its economic viability; if what O'Barry says is accurate, ending the dolphin hunt would not have a major impact on Taiji's economy:

"It's some few people. There are thirteen boats, two people in each boat: we're talking about twenty-six guys. Most of the 3,500 people who live in Taiji are not involved in this. So it's a very small minority of people who are doing this, and the government spin machine is having us believe that somehow we have to keep this going, because it's our tradition."

In conclusion, I think that Ric O'Barry makes some good points, and if I had my druthers, I'd prefer that the Japanese didn't kill dolphins. I also think that Ric O'Barry's campaign has been a good thing in that it has forced the Japanese news media to bring the Taiji dolphin hunt to the attention of the Japanese public. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that an important Japanese news story was broken first in the foreign press. The high incidence of mercury poisoning in Minamata city, the eponymous "Minamata Disease," didn't get wide media exposure in Japan until after a famous photo by American photojournalist Eugene W. Smith, Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath, was published in Life Magazine. The Japanese tend to shy away from controversy and confrontation. There is a Japanese proverb that goes, "if it stinks, put a lid on it." Now that the lid is off, the public can take a good sniff of this issue and decide what to do with it.

I don't think that it's up to Ric O'Barry, or any other foreigner, to decide what the Japanese should do in their own country. The Cove has brought this subject to the attention of the Japanese public, but now it's up to them to decide whether or not to continue hunting dolphins. The Japanese people are perfectly capable of deciding how to run there own country and their own lives. As cute as dolphins are, if the survival of any particular species is not being endangered, I don't think that the critics of the Taiji dolphin hunt have the right to demand it be ended.