The Last Samurai in Taiji

Tom Cruise may be playing the Last Samurai on the big screen but, in Japan, American conservationist Nik Hensey is the Last Samurai in a surreal scene of carnage.

Since September 29, Hensey has been hunkered down in the southeastern coastal village of Taiji where Japanese fishermen slaughter dolphins. Each day that he is there, the dolphin killers become angrier and more threatening.

On October 6, Hensey and two colleagues from the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society positioned themselves on a cliff overlooking a scenic cove near Taiji. From their vantage point they secretly filmed as sixty striped dolphins were stabbed to death with knives and spears.

Hensey and his fellow activists, Brooke McDonald of Canada and Morgan Whorwood of Britain, who are all in their 20s, were threatened by some of the fishermen. When the trio called for help they found themselves arrested by local police, but no charges were laid and they were later released.

"The police transported all three crewmembers to the central station in Shingu, 40 minutes east of Taiji, where they were isolated and interrogated for nine hours," Sea Shepherd president Paul Watson said from the United States.

"Whorwood was told an assault charge was being filed against him by one of the fisherman, but was not permitted to contact his consulate. All three were photographed and fingerprinted despite no wrongdoing."

Watson says police omitted key information about the attack when statements were taken from the activists, specifically in regards to a threat on McDonald's life.

"One of the fishermen spoke directly to McDonald in the presence of the police and warned, 'B****, I kill you. Don't come back'."

On October 17 police visited Sea Shepherd activists in Taiji to inform them of a new law. The cliffs overlooking Taiji's dolphin slaughtering bay had been declared dangerous and it was now illegal to scale the rocky embankments around the bay.

Killing dolphins is legal in Japan and the meat is usually canned and sold.

"The fishermen work in concert with a small armada of boats and sounding rods below the water's surface to interfere with the dolphins' sonar and navigational abilities," Watson said.

"Once they have located a pod, they isolate and herd the communities into net pens. There the families are held overnight while their stress hormones return to normal. Smaller skiffs drive the pods onto the beach the following morning where the fisherman slaughter and bleed them into the bay, staining the water red."

Sea Shepherd says the Japanese government permits the killing of 20,000 dolphins a year in near-shore drives.

The conservationists' presence discouraged further dolphin drives at Taiji until October 23 when some thirty Melon-head whales were driven into the bay. Thirteen of the animals were captured in pens.

The following day, as the fishermen began to kill the captured whales, Hensey defied the new law and climbed on to a cliff to take pictures. He says angry fishermen confronted him and hit him with sticks.

Although McDonald and Whorwood have since left Taiji, Hensey has been joined by another American, Billy McNamara, and the two men are continuing to document the killing of marine mammals.

They say fishermen captured 30 pilot whales near Taiji last Thursday. Included in the capture were several sub-adults, five babies and two male adults trying to protect the pod.

During the round up of the pilot whales, Hensey says he and McNamara were cornered by about 20 fishermen who threatened to kill them and push them into the bay.

On Friday Hensey again reported that he was involved in a confrontation with the fishermen.

Watson said he was contacting police in Osaka and in Shingu to try to find out what was happening to Hensey and McNamara.

Taiji Fishermen load dolphins into their boat, Oct 6

Photo and video courtesy

Sea Shepherd

Herald Feature: Conservation and Environment