*Please note this event will start at 7:00pm.
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The Taiji Dolphin Drive: Cultural Tradition or Slaughter?
- An evening with Ric O'Barry and Izumi Ishii ==================================
Date: Friday, March 14, 2014
Time: Door opens at 6:30pm, Program starts at 7:00pm
Venue:
Temple University Japan Campus, Azabu Hall 2F
(access: http://www.tuj.ac.jp/maps/tokyo.html)
Speakers:
Ric O'Barry, Director of the Dolphin Project of the Earth Island Institute Izumi Ishii, Advocator for ocean habitat and organizer of Dolphin & Whale Watching tours
Moderator:
Kyle Cleveland, Associate Director of ICAS
Admission: Free. Open to public
Language: English
RSVP:
icas@tuj.temple.edu
* If you RSVP you are automatically registered. If possible, we ask you to RSVP but we always welcome participants even you do not RSVP.
* RSVPなしでも参加できますので、直接会場へお越しくださ
い。

Overview

Ric O’Barry is one of the world’s most recognized experts on protecting dolphins and whales. As Director of the Dolphin Project of the Earth Island Institute, he has become a leading spokesman for animal rights.
Ric's work became internationally known especially through the Academy Award winning documentary "The Cove," which depicted his efforts to rescue dolphins from the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan. His work has also been featured in the Animal Planet series "Blood Dolphins," and he is the author of several books, including "Behind the Dolphin Smile,"; "To Free a Dolphin," and the children’s book "Happyface," which has been translated and released in Japan. For further information, please visit http://www.dolphinproject.org/

For this special event, Ric will be joined by Izumi Ishii, a 6th generation fisherman and 3rd generation dolphin hunter from the town of Futo, Japan. Although Ishii was one of the early figures in Japan who helped develop the dolphin drive killings in Japan in 1969, his experiences provoked him to reconsider this practice and in 1997 he turned against the dolphin hunts and urged Japan to stop dolphin killing and consider dolphins to be the symbol of a living ocean.
He now runs whale and dolphin-watching cruises from his boat in Futo, explaining to passengers about the history of killing dolphins in Futo and why he decided to end his hunts. The town of Futo has not conducted any dolphin captures since 2004 (only 9 dolphins were caught that year, all for sale to marine parks), and has become a major location for recreational SCUBA diving and other tourism opportunities. For further information of his activities, please visit
https://sv361.xserver.jp/~tes-sev/kohkaimaru.com/?l=2

Since the release of "The Cove," the Japanese dolphin drives in Taiji have become a flashpoint for debates on Japan's historical legacies as they relate to international norms. Whereas nostalgic traditionalists (including the Japanese right-wing Uyoku) have defended Japanese dolphin drives as a deeply rooted cultural tradition, critics have claimed that this presumably archaic historical tradition is in fact a recent development among a limited group of fisherman who exploit animals for economic gain and "play the culture card" as a way to defend their practices. Moreover, as the film "The Cove" described, dolphin meat from the hunts, much of which has been contaminated from mercury and PCB toxins, have found their way into the Japanese market place, and been used in public school lunches, a scandal that has raised issues of transparency, public health and consumer choice.

This event will provide a forum to discuss these controversial issues with two of the most influential figures who brought these issues to widespread, international attention.

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Robert Dujarric, Director
Kyle Cleveland, Associate Director
Eriko Kawaguchi, Coordinator

Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Temple University, Japan Campus
www.tuj.ac.jp/icas
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ICAS events do not reflect any TUJ opinions but solely those of the speakers and participants.