My First Dolphin Mass Mortality Event

By Hardy Jones

During the summer of 2013 we have had mass mortality events of dolphins along three coasts of the United States and the St. Lawrence River in Canada. For some background here is a portion of a chapter from my book, The Voice of the Dolphins.

Currently, August 2013, more than 200 dolphins have died in or near New Jersey. My coverage of the dolphin MME in 1987 began in New Jersey.
 

A New York Times article headed “Search Widening for Clues in Puzzle of Mounting Dolphin Deaths” reported that some one hundred dolphins had been found dead along the shores of New Jersey and the die-off was moving farther south. An increasing number of dolphins were being found stranded in Virginia, all of them with bronchial pneumonia, and virtually all of them dead. The article noted that hundreds of dolphins had almost certainly died in deep water and would never be counted. There was real panic along the Jersey shore. In the absence of reliable information, hypotheses blossomed among the citizens of beach towns. Was this a form of dolphin AIDS? Had deadly toxins escaped from a military facility nearby?

My film on whales was followed by a contract to do a one-hour special on dolphins, again for Audubon on Turner Broadcasting. I was to cover the wonders of dolphins in the wild but executive producer Chris Palmer told me in no uncertain terms that there was also a strong mandate from Ted Turner to hit conservation issues hard. The film, which was eventually titled If Dolphins Could Talk, gave me a chance to investigate the die-off. I flew to New Jersey.

As I began to look into this unfolding tragedy, I remembered visiting Atlantic City, a glorious stretch of beach, as a very young boy. The memory still evoked the smell of Coppertone and salt air. At that time and through the early encounters with the dolphins in the Bahamas the ocean remained a place of joy and innocence. Now, it appeared paradise might be slipping away.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) calls such die-offs “unusual mortality events,” or UMEs. This UME had first been detected by Bob Schoelkopf of the Brigantine Marine Mammal Stranding Network as early as April. Dolphins were washing ashore and beachgoers reported their eyes were stinging. Some even reported nausea. No one knew whether there was a connection to the dolphin deaths.

As May turned into June, the numbers of dead dolphins washing up on beaches had increased to the point that Schoelkopf called federal authorities. It was the beginning of a medical mystery with ramifications of the highest importance for dolphins and humans alike. While dolphins and small whales strand for a variety of reasons, nothing of this magnitude had ever been reported. The event was telling us something about the health of the oceans, and it was crucial we find out what the message was.

When it became clear that the dead dolphins on beaches were not isolated events, an interagency governmental task force was formed. Representatives from agencies such as the NMFS and state and local health departments swarmed the beaches looking for evidence.

Dr. Joseph Geraci, the man chosen to head the task force, known as the dolphin response team, was a well-known and highly respected marine pathologist from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. As the UME progressed, Dr. Geraci came under tremendous pressure to find what was killing the dolphins.

But few of the dead dolphins could be necropsied due to decomposition. Where necropsy was possible high levels of contaminants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were found. So every cadaver recovered had to be treated as toxic waste and disposed of by a HazMat team. By August, dolphins were stranding on Virginia beaches and the total number of confirmed dead had reached six hundred.

When I interviewed Bob Schoelkopf at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, he told me, “We may be losing the entire near-shore population of bottlenose dolphins along our Atlantic Coast.” He listed their symptoms. All the dolphins had fluid in their chests, stomachs, and lungs. Most were emaciated, indicating that they hadn’t eaten in days, or even weeks. In addition, their mouths were lacerated, and on some, their skin was peeling. “All their internal organs were pathologic, with enlarged spleens and other abnormalities,” he said. Tissue samples from the Virginia dolphins were sent to the National Veterinary Service Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, one of the country’s leading facilities for studying animal pathology. As summer dissolved into fall and the die-off spread southward, no diagnosis was forthcoming.

To me, the die-off was an utterly horrifying experience. I imagined individual dolphins like Didi and Chopper first feeling that something was wrong, then growing sicker and more vulnerable to shark attack and finally dying in agony. And as stranded dolphins were found on beaches of the southeastern United States, I was haunted by the idea that the lethal agent might leap the Gulf Stream and infect the spotted dolphins I knew and loved in the Bahamas.

After completion of If Dolphins Could Talk, I continued my investigation of the UME, financed by a grant from the Center for Marine Conservation. During that inquiry, some very peculiar things happened.

I flew from California to New Jersey and drove along the eastern seaboard. During the fall of 1987, a top vet from the National Veterinary Service (NVS) pulled me aside at one of the many public meetings held in coastal communities to try to allay the fears of coastal dwelling humans. “I will only speak to you on the absolute condition that you do not associate my name with what I’m about to tell you,” he began.

I agreed but wondered why all the secrecy.

“What’s going on involves the fact that these dolphins are loaded with chemicals such as PCBs, pesticides, and other contaminants. The way these chemicals work is that they bio-accumulate up the marine food chain, and because they’re lipophilic [easily absorbable by fat] they can build to very high levels in dolphins, whales, and other marine mammals.”

The absolute levels of contamination in the water column are very low and safe, he went on to tell me. “The chemical companies that dump these contaminants think that by diluting the poisons they render them effectively harmless.” What they didn’t count on was the reverse process taking place as these chemicals are biomagnified up the food chain. The chemicals are absorbed by plankton that are eaten by tiny fish, which are then eaten by small fish, then larger fish, and ultimately by dolphins and humans. “By the time they reach apex predators—including us—they’re literally concentrated by factors of billions,” he said, his face contorted by the thought. The chemical companies’ theory of “dilution is the solution” did not contemplate the unfathomable ways of nature.

Dolphins Dieing of Very UNnatural Causes in Peru

By Hardy Jones

     Dolphins are again dieing on the northern coast of Peru. While reports have raised concern for another mass mortality event (MME) duplicating the one in 2012, the death of ten dolphins over the course of two weeks with no follow-on reports of high rates of stranding does not represent an MME. Dolphins, of course, do die from natural causes.

     But thousands of dolphins are dieing from highly UNnatural causes in Peru. Surveys commissioned by BlueVoice and carried out by BlueVoice and Organización Científica para la Conservación de Animales Acuáticos ORCA from December 2012 through February 2013 document a mass slaughter of dolphins for human consumption by fishermen along a large part of the Peruvian coast. This slaughter may cause the death of more dolphins than the infamous drive hunts at Taiji, Japan, portrayed in my films for PBS and National Geographic and by the academy award winning feature film, "The Cove".

     Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos, president of ORCA, and I conducted surveys in the area of San Jose, a coastal village on the northern coast of Peru.  An ORCA team later surveyed villages south of Lima. We found numerous cadavers of dolphins on beaches with clear indications they had been killed then butchered.

     Fishermen told us that dolphin hunting is common and takes place at dawn and dusk. Based on interviews with fishermen, Dr. Yaipen Llanos confirmed that butchering often takes place at sea and meat is delivered to shore in plastic bags or boxes.

     In the village of Bujama local people approached the ORCA team in a state of dismay, saying "flipper has being killed!"  "We were as shocked, as everyone else in the beach", said Dr. Yaipen Llanos. After viewing the body he reported "We found this dolphin right after it was slaughtered, after dusk, around 8pm. We found the dolphin (had) been collected, assassinated and slaughtered specifically for meat extraction and human consumption."

                   Bottlenose dolphin killed for food south of Lima © ORCA/BlueVoice

     It turns out the hunting of dolphins in Peru is nothing new. It's been going on for decades. Photos going back thirty years show dolphins pulled from the waters off the famous surfing venue of Cerro Azul, just south of Lima. I remember one of the great thrills of my life -had been surfing with dolphins at Cerro Azul during my Peace Corps days in the late 1960s.

     According to a paper by Stefan Austermuhle, Executive Director of the Peruvian marine conservation group Mundo Azul (Blue World), during the 1980s and 90s between 15,000 - 20,000 dolphins were killed annually. In 1995 a law was passed prohibiting the practice and numbers of dolphins killed declined dramatically. But the take today is still in the thousands.

     While it's illegal to hunt dolphins in Peru there is virtually no enforcement. And recent changes in the law make it legal to take dolphins "accidentally" when they're caught in nets and drowned. And under this law phony accidents most certainly will happen.

     Dr Yaipen-Llanos reports that, according to local fishermen, small fishing boats hunting dolphins follow pods mainly at dusk and dawn. The dolphins are caught using nets thrown from caballitos de tortora (small boats constructed from reeds) and then harpooned while still in the net. This is consistent with reports by Mundo Azul in 2003 that "the fishermen encircle whole dolphin schools with nets, catch them with harpoons, lift them aboard and kill them by clubbing them to death".

     We learned that in addition to using nets, the fishermen disperse insecticide and oil to kill sea lions and dolphins. The price of dolphin meat can be as little as five Peruvian soles per kilo - about one dollar per pound, making it a very cheap source of protein for poor people. There seems to be no concept among fishermen and consumers that eating meat from an animal that was killed with poison is not a healthy practice.

     In December 2012 I joined Dr. Yaipen Llanos in visiting San Jose Mayor Victor Paiva in his municipal office. He openly admitted to eating dolphin meat himself and asked nine other municipal workers if they ate it. All replied that they did. Dr. Yaipen-Llanos asked a woman on the street of San Jose (population 7434) how much dolphin meat was eaten in the village. She replied "the village subsists almost entirely on dolphin meat".

     Having been a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, I am well aware of the poverty and lack of education confronting a large number of Peruvians. I revere dolphins and abhor the act of hunting them but would face something of a dilemma if poor, hungry people hunted dolphins that were safe to eat. While levels of contamination in dolphins does vary from place to place, both organic and heavy metal contamination are distributed on currents throughout the ocean ecosystem. Dolphins are at the height of the marine food chain and bio-accumulate these toxins to high levels of concentration. Our tests on the hair of Mayor Paiva of San Jose showed he had mercury levels more than twelve times higher than the "safe" level recommended by the U.S. EPA. We were unable to test for organic pollutants due to lack of facilities in Peru.

     Peru is by no means the only place where fishermen hunt dolphins for food and/or bait to catch sharks. Recent reports from Tanzania document substantial hunting of dolphins to be used to bait sharks which are then finned. Shark fins are considered a delicacy both locally and in Asian markets and bring a lucrative return.

     In the West Indies pilot whales and other on a regular basis and meat can be purchased, among other places, in the market at Castries on Dominica.

     In a comprehensive paper published in 2011 Robards and Reeves concluded "It is now clear that human consumption of marine mammals is geographically widespread, taxonomically diverse, and often of uncertain sustainability. Since 1990, people in at least 114 countries have consumed one or more of at least 87 marine mammal species."

     In many places these hunts are not sustainable. Marine mammals do not reproduce rapidly and use of their bodies to perpetrate such egregious practices as shark fining could extirpate populations of dolphins and other marine mammals in many locations. The current situation demands further research into the reason for the increase in hunting dolphins and other marine mammals as bush meat. More than that, it demands cooperation through international agencies to end the practice of using large-brained mammals for food and bait.

Toxics and Blood Cancer, a Diabetes Link?

Thursday, January 31, 2013

This blog was written on the site of the International Myeloma Foundation in response to a posting by the eminent Myeloma authority Dr. Brian Durie.

http://myeloma.org/MtEntryPage.action?source=/imf_blogs/myeloma_voices/2013/01/broad-concerns-about-toxic-exposures-and-myeloma.html

By Hardy Jones 

I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in 2003. In 1997 I had been diagnosed with chronic mercury poisoning attributed to a diet high in tuna and swordfish - large predatory fish known to carry high levels of heavy metals and organic pollutants.

In 2005 I was tested for organic pollutants such as those derived from agent orange, benzine, DDT, flame retardants etc. I was found to be quite high in some of the congeners. The story is best told in my book, The Voice of the Dolphins, but is also covered on the Bluevoice web site.

I would say (in response to Dr. Durie's intention to test 911 victims) the sooner the better on testing 9/11 victims. Even though it’s slow, POPs (persistent organic pollutants) do break down and diminish. Also, if a person loses weight they will mobilize POPs, which are lipophilic, and excrete them.

When I asked toxics expert Arlene Blum about my POPs levels she said “Oh, too bad you didn’t get tested when you were still eating lots of tuna etc. because your values would now be only a shadow of what they may have been.” I had stopped eating large predatory fish in 1997 after being found to have high mercury levels. My test for POPs was run in 2005. I’m thinking of having myself tested again - 7 years after the last test but the tests are expensive.

I’ve just heard from a top marine mammal toxicologist that there is likely a correlation between levels of mercury and other heavy metals and POPs. There are confounding problems but as a general rule this analogy works.

I will be getting test results from Peruvian dolphin-eating fishermen by Feb. 21. Our tests for mercury etc. should/could be a proxy for POPs. These fishermen have epidemic incidence of diabetes which Dr. Durie has tied to MM incidence.

It's great the IMF is doing this work. Prevention Multiple Myeloma and other cancers is better than suppressing disease with drugs, even though these drugs have been a godsend to me. I would be happy to receive information from people who eat a lot of high food chain predatory fish who have MM.

http://www.bluevoice.org/news_diabetes2.php 

http://www.bluevoice.org/news_sharedfate.php

Hardy Nominated As Ocean Hero

We are working to nominate Hardy for the Ocean Heroes award.
If you can take a minute to also nominate him that would be great.

THANK YOU!

Jennifer

Here's the info/link:

Go to https://www.facebook.com/oceana/app_425004930866752

Fill out nominees info: Hardy Jones, hardyjones@bluevoice.org, 68 years old, http://www.bluevoice.org <http://www.bluevoice.org/>

Then just fill in the large white box with your brief thoughts about why he is so worthy of this recognition. : )

Findings in Dolphin Mortality Event in Peru

By Hardy Jones

I've just spoken with Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos in Lima. He has found no evidence of virus or disease such as brucellosis in the dolphins stranded along the coast of northern Peru. He has found indications of internal trauma including indications of rapid ascent. But he emphasized he did not know the cause of this. Many have blamed seismic testing by oil companies but the UME began before the oil companies began testing in 2012. I'm awaiting a full report from him.

Happier news is that the Peruvian Congress summoned Carlos to testify and they were highly alarmed and indicated they would take strong action against deliberate killing of dolphins for food. They are looking at other measures to protect dolphins in Peruvian waters.

 Hardy Jones of BlueVoice.org and Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos with dead baby dolphin

It is becoming clear that the pelican mortality is due to starvation probably linked to the el nino/la nina cycle.


More shortly.

Dolphin Mortality in Peru - 2nd Trip

Hardy and Carlos by Dead Baby Dolphin

Tuesday, April 10. We arrive to the stranding site, as I told you before,
on Tuesday, next with my assistant, a Environmental Police officer and
driver. We closed a successfull day collecting 10 periotic bones from
dolphins, blubber samples from new dolphin strandings that were
viable and a fresh baby porpoise for histology analysis collected at
the very end of they. We surveyed 50 Km only, planning to return the
next day. It took us 8 hours in the road since removing periotic bones
is a very delicate process, as Hardy knows from experience. We counted
a dozen new dead dolphins dead a week ago getting stranded by the
ocean.

Conclusion as to Cause of Dolphin Mortality East Coast USA

During the late 1980s a massive die-off of bottlenose dolphins took place first in New Jersey and moved along the entire eastern seaboard, ending finally at Cape Canaveral. Hundreds of dead dolphins were found, many others were never counted. Below is the conclusion of the multidisciplinary committee that investigated this dreadful event.

My book contains the entire story, politics, bureaucracy and unanswered questions.

 

The process of reviewing evidence and getting it peer-reviewed takes time. In September 1994, I received a report of the conclusions of the interagency team that had gathered in Beaufort, North Carolina, with additional experts to bring together all information produced by investigations into the die-off. The report concluded, “The results for the beach-cast specimens (dead dolphins) obviously reflect the levels of contaminants in the nearshore environment where the dolphins accumulate these substances.” 

But no definitive answer was ever found. 

Catastrophe for dolphins along the north coast of Peru

Hardy Jones reporting from Chiclayo Peru, March 28th:

During February of this year there had been rumors of as many as 260 dolphins dead on the north coast of Peru. But some authorities dismissed the report. I backed off the story. But on March 23rd I received an email from Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos, Lima-based director of the marine mammal rescue organization, ORCA Peru, stating there had been approximately one thousand dolphins stranded along the north coast of Peru. Lest there be any doubt, stranded means dead in virtually all cases.

For a night I stared at the ceiling. What was the truth of what was happening along that bleak, desert coast, one of the most abundant fisheries in the world and mating and feeding habitat for huge numbers of dolphins, sea lions and birds? If the numbers were even close to accurate this would be perhaps the greatest dolphin mortality event ever recorded. I called Dr. Yaipen. He had a man on the ground north of Chiclayo who confirmed large numbers of dolphins stranded along 200 kilometers of the coast.

I immediately packed my bags and book a Delta flight for Lima the following day. Carlos met me at Jorge Chavez International Airport. Our 6:25am flight to Chiclayo was cancelled due to Lima’s pea soup fog so we grabbed an overnight bus. We linked up with three young ORCA women who had done some scouting for Carlos. They confirmed dead dolphins on nearby beaches but had not traveled most of the coast.

At 11am we packed into a four wheel drive Toyota pickup with a back seat cab and drove through San Jose to the beach, cranked a right turn and headed north at low tide on a beach that was mostly firm.  Our goal was to find the thousand beached dolphins and were told the greatest concentration was three hours drive north. That was our goal and we determined we would not stop for anything else.

Within a few hundred yards we began to see dead dolphins.  In ones and twos, then Carlos saw a Burmeister’s Porpoise. Some were highly decomposed while others were in the surfline freshly stranded. All were dead.

Carlos and his team performed necropsies on a couple of the dolphins. Seeing a new born common dolphin, umbilicus still attached was wrenching.

We raced along the hard sand at the edge of the surfline crying out when we saw a dead dolphin. At first they came every couple minutes. But then we’d hit intervals when the cries would go “dolphin! Delphin! Otro! Dos mas! There’s another one up by the dune.”

When I asked for a total from Carlos’ s assistant I was stunned to hear we’d counted over 200 dolphins. We hit a length of beach no more than 100 yards long in which we found ten dolphins of varying levels of decomposition.

The numbers continued to mount. By the time the rising tide forced us off the beach the count had reached 615, counted over 135 kilometers. 

Dr. Yaipen and I had known each other for some four years. We’d become involved in a study of Peruvian fishermen who eat dolphin meat. While illegal, this is commonly done and the authorities do not have the resources to prevent it. But Dr. Yaipen had discovered something important. The fishermen who ate dolphin meat regularly had a disproportionately elevated incidence of diabetes. I had found diabetes in Taiji, Japan in two men who ate dolphin meat; not in itself significant but these were men who had no other symptoms. Both were lean, didn’t eat sugar. What they did eat was dolphin meat and a certain fish that is known to have high levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals – chemicals that also disrupt the way the human body utilizes insulin.

Dolphin Hunting Season Ends at Taiji - Reason for Hope?

  There is potentially good news from Taiji. The number of dolphins killed this year was 615. Half of last year.
  They are ending the hunting season Feb 28, which is the normal ending time for the hunt on dolphins (Iruka). But last year when they came up short of their quota they got an extension to make up for the deficit. This year they did not ask for one. The question now is whether they will continue to hunt gondo (pilot whales, Rissos, melonheads – i.e. what they call small whales but we in the west classify as dolphins). By tradition they hunt them through April. If they do not hunt them it would be a good sign. But as in all things related tdo Taiji I urge caution. 
  The most likely cause of this decline in take is that there is less demand. But it is also possible that water temperatures have moved the most often taken species to different waters in search of prey. Distribution of fish is mostly governed by water temperature. A final possibility is that the prized species have become depleted and are difficult to find.
   There were also 160 dolphins taken for captivity during the past season.
   I believe the best course of action for BlueVoice is to continue to test dolphins and dolphin eaters for contamination and publish that information to depress the demand for dolphin meat.

Pollutants in Fish Lead to Larger Breasts, Diabetes and Obesity

Huffington Post has just published my blog on the impact estrogen imitating chemicals ingested through fish (and dolphin meat) can have on obesity, diabetes and larger breasts in women – AND MEN! Toxic data a great tool to end dolphin hunt for meat. Please forward to friends and RT. Also Like and Comment on the blog.
http://huff.to/wPyhkh

Mortality Rate in Dolphin Eating Taiji Town

Japan's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research has cited mortality figures in Taiji, for 2007, at 67 deaths from a population of some 3,500 residents — putting the town's overall mortality rate more than 50 percent above other villages nationwide of roughly the same population. However Kozagawa, west of Taiji, where dolphin meat is also consumed, showed an even higher rate — with 82 deaths from a population of 3,426 people in 2007.

Mercury Expert Warns of Fish Jerky

Dr. Jane Hightower, a pioneer in connecting human disease to mercury consumption has published a paper on alarming levels of mercury in fish jerky. Hightower is a wonderful doctor and person and primary in bringing the dangers of mercury in fish to public attention.

For more on mercury go to www.Diagnosismercury.org  Her book,  Diagnosis Mercury is available at Amazon at http://amzn.to/xgWBs6

For interview with Dr. Hightower and more information on mercury go to
http://bluevoice.org/news_mercury.php

Mercury Concentrations in Fish Jerky Snack Food:
Marlin, Ahi, and Salmon
Jane M Hightower1* and David L Brown2

Abstract
Background: Dried meat and fish have served as an important durable nutrition source for humans for centuries. Because omega 3 fatty acids in fish are recognized as having antioxidant and anti inflammatory properties found to be beneficial for good health, many consumers are looking to fish as their main source of protein.
Unfortunately, contaminants such as methylmercury can accumulate in some species of fish. The purpose of this research is to test commercially available fish jerky snack foods for mercury contamination.
Methods: Fifteen bags of marlin jerky, three bags of ahi jerky, and three bags of salmon jerky were purchased from large retail stores in Hawaii and California, and directly from the proprietors’ Internet websites. Five individual strips of jerky per bag were analyzed for a total of one hundred and five tests.
Results: From the seventy-five marlin jerky samples, mercury concentration ranged from 0.052-28.17 μg/g, with an average of 5.53 μg/g, median 4.1 μg/g. Fifty-six (75%) marlin samples had mercury concentrations that exceeded the FDA’s current mercury action level of 1.0 μg/g, while six samples had greater than 10 μg/g. Fifteen samples of ahi had mercury concentrations ranging from 0.09-0.55 μg/g, while mercury concentrations in fifteen salmon samples ranged from 0.030-0.17 μg/g.
Conclusions: This study found that mercury concentrations in some fish jerky can often exceed the FDA’s allowable mercury limit and could be a significant source of mercury exposure.
Keywords: Ahi, fish, jerky, marlin, mercury, methylmercury, salmon

Reporting the Dolphin Slaughter Live from Taiji

In 2001 I went to Taiji ready to do audiocasts coupled with video from the scene of the dolphin slaughters. I'm posting this so those fighting for the lives of the dolphins today will have some perspective on what has been tried before and how it worked out. The following segment if from The Voice of the Dolphins.

By Hardy Jones

The story begins on the first day of our finding about 40 pilot whales netted off in Hatagajiri Bay.

I phoned my first report to a voice-mail box at Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). It would be coupled with the pre-staged video and stills and go out on The Animal Channel within a few hours. The first Internet report brought an audience of unique visitors numbering fifteen thousand within twelve hours. In my report, I asked everyone listening to protest to Japanese embassies and the fishing cooperative in Taiji.

Meanwhile, the fishermen were nowhere to be seen. Sakae walked into town and learned from the woman running the dolphin meat shop that they were discussing what to do about us.

Day two was sunny. We monitored the bay against any attempt to kill the pilot whales. If they were going to die, we were going to film it. Watching a large male protectively circling the females and calves was agonizing for me. I had a slim hope that we could force the fishermen to release them but, in reality, knew they would eventually return with their long knives.

Later in the day, the boat used in the slaughter returned to Hatajiri Bay. It moved among the pilot whales, and suddenly, a man on the bow thrust a spear into the body of one of them. It writhed briefly and then went still. Moments later, the process was repeated. Both whales were then secured by rope to the side of the boat and dragged back to Taiji town for butchering. I filmed the entire process from a hidden position atop the cliff on the north side of the bay. What the fishermen were trying to avoid by this time consuming procedure was any grizzly slaughter footage emerging from Taiji.

I continued to file audio reports. The audience built with each passing hour until we had reached three hundred thousand unique visitors. A tsunami of protest faxes and calls pounded Japanese embassies around the world.

And then the typhoon hit with a vengeance. That night I lay on my futon bed on the straw mat floor thinking of the terror of the whales. Sleep was fitful when it came.

On the morning of the third day, I awoke at 4:30 and, carrying my video camera, left the hotel alone. The killing bay was quiet— only the pilot whales’ percussive breathing what I feared would be their last breaths. I walked along the southern arm of the bay to a point where I could see the incoming storm pushing huge waves against the rocky shore. Rain was falling almost horizontally in wind-driven sheets, but the temperature was mild.

As I turned back toward the road, a little white van appeared. It turned and the headlights hit me straight on. They knew I was there. They clambered out of the cab and started removing their implements of slaughter. Without thinking much about it, I walked toward them, camera running on my hip. They didn’t seem to know what to do, but as I passed among them, I said “Sayonara.” I’m not sure why. One of them growled something that Sakae later translated as “Sayonara, my ass. You know what we’re doing, and you’ll be back.”

Back at the hotel, Larry and Sakae joined me, and we went out the rear door and took a coastal path to reach the ocean side of the killing bay. We climbed a steep stone stairway to a vantage point a couple of hundred feet above the bay. By the time we got there, the killing had begun. The fishermen were stabbing individual pilot whales, then roping their tails and dragging them to the beach to cut their throats and let them bleed out. I crawled out on a rock promontory and began shooting video. Rain was intense, and I wondered how long my Sony camera would hold out.

For a moment, I imagined what the pilot whales must be experiencing: held for days in confusion and terror, concerned for their babies and fellow pod members, then suddenly forced into a confined space and stabbed, roped and hauled to the beach to face their executioners. For most of the time, they would be conscious and feeling excruciating pain. The second rank to be killed would be hearing the cries of those first taken. Soon, the taste of the blood of their pod mates would reach those awaiting the same fate.

But I could think and grieve later. The job of the moment was to record the images. Looking through the lens puts distance between the cameraman and the horror. You have to focus and get the light right and make sure you have sufficient battery charge and tape to carry the whole shoot. But the massacre was registering in me, stored in a momentarily remote place from which it would erupt in later days and nights. I had watched these pilot whales for three days, and this felt very personal.

Suddenly we heard a guttural cry and several fishermen appeared behind us. “What the hell are you doing! You people are a pain in the ass,” they screamed in Japanese.

Larry and I tried to continue taping, but our main concern became safeguarding the video we’d already taken. The mission of these men was to get it from us. We demanded to go to the police, but the fishermen laughed and said, “Fine; they’re our friends.” So we decided against that.

The fishermen carried long poles they use to prod the whales and wore hard hats that they swung at us. I decided the best way to get out of this confrontation was to move to a more public area, so I suggested to Sakae and Larry that we agree to accompany the fishermen down the hill toward the main road and the hotel, pretending to be following their instructions. As we descended, Larry and I discussed what to do.

When I got near the bottom of the stone stairs, I looked back at Larry. He made a signal that he would roll tape, and I made a break for the hotel. A young, heavy-set guy hit me with his hard hat, crouched into a sumo-like stance, and tried to block my way. Crossing the several hundred yards to the hotel in wet jeans was like running through glue. The fisherman kept trying to push me backwards. I made slow progress by putting out my arms like a bird drying its wings and then rolling off him to gain a few steps. I felt like an NBA forward working through a tough defense. My adversary smiled and yelled, “Ah, basketball!” We both laughed. What kind of confrontation was this? A few yards farther on, he hit me particularly hard with his hard hat, then apologized. “Gomenasai”—“So sorry.” Only in Japan!

Larry caught up to me at the entrance to the hotel. We went through the front door like a running back and his blocker. Sakae followed. The fisherman ran into the lobby after us, screaming violently but we managed to get into our rooms and lock the doors.

It seemed apparent that no further videotaping could be done in Taiji. Outside our hotel windows, the typhoon howled, and we were not about to walk back into the hands of the fishermen. What was paramount was to get the video material on the Internet as soon as possible. This would not save the pilot whales now dead or dying in Hatajiri Bay, but perhaps we could thwart the next capture. We didn’t know on whose side the police in Taiji would come down. At all costs, we did not want our videotape confiscated.

With today’s technology—an iPod, for instance—I could have shot video and e-mailed it to HSUS in Washington or uploaded to YouTube. But in 2001, we had to get to a Hyatt hotel in Osaka to transmit via an Ethernet connection.

Spotted Dolphins Meet Underwater Piano

In 1978 we sailed out to meet a pod of spotted dolphins we'd be told about by a treasure diver. After two days of sailing we found the school, made contact and swam with them on a glorious late afternoon. Our next approach to establish contact was to put an underwater "piano" in the water. The results were phenomenal and opened a relationship that has lasted more than thirty years.

The following sequence comes from The Voice of the Dolphins. 

As Steve prepared his gear, Ray went back to bail out the whaler and found a dead barracuda in the bottom of the boat. No one could explain how a barracuda might have gotten there. We hadn’t been fishing. Could it have jumped in by accident? Then I noticed the dead fish had a set of teeth marks on its dorsal side behind the head that matched the shape of a dolphin jaw. The only possible answer seemed to be that one of the dolphins had somehow killed it and placed it in our dingy. Was this the barracuda that had been annoying some of us the previous afternoon? Could the dolphins be concerned about our safety or even our state of mind? Was it a joke or a display of their powers? That mystery would last several years before later events led to a plausible answer.

The camera team put on scuba gear and slipped into the water. John lowered what we called “the piano” over the side to Steve, who was worried the rise and fall of the swells would slam his precious instrument against the hull and damage it before he could put it to use. The instrument was essentially a keyboard attached to a synthesizer with an underwater speaker clipped to the side. This was housed in Plexiglas, just like underwater cameras of the day. Steve held it in his hands. Nothing connected him to it except a line from his scuba tank. The contraption was about the size of an accordion. It weighed nothing when in the water but was slightly awkward and subject to the currents.

He pushed off from the side of the boat, exhaled, and descended, regulating his breathing to provide air to power the instrument. Although there were no dolphins in sight, Jack and Jim assumed positions to film whatever happened.

Steve was kneeling on the bottom at a depth of about eighteen feet when he began playing. A couple of minutes passed, and nothing happened. I was looking around and wondering whether I should associate myself with this bizarre undertaking. Five minutes passed. Steve was still playing, but I was already shaking my head and mumbling to myself that I’d never really thought this music business would work. I walked to the bow . . .

A squadron of dolphins appeared, moving at phenomenal speed, flying more than swimming. They covered three hundred yards in a matter of seconds, and when they reached Albury’s  bow, they dove, wheeling and turning around the source of the music.

For Steve their arrival came as a complete surprise. The film footage Jack shot shows him snapping his head up and left as the dolphins flew past him like fighter jets on a strafing run. He changed his music instantly from fugue to a kind of polka, and pushed off the sand to swim about six feet above the bottom. The dolphins took up positions just ahead of him and matched their speed to his as though they were enjoying the show. Before long, dolphins and humans had calmed, and if you didn’t think too hard, all that was happening was that a man with an underwater piano was playing a concert for a school of dolphins thirty miles from the nearest land.

Aboard Albury, all we could see were rippling dark shapes against the white sand bottom. But it was clear that the dolphins were staying very close to Steve. And the cameras were rolling.

A group of four young dolphins swam slowly just in front of the Plexiglas box, leaving only long enough to rise to the surface for a breath of air, then gliding back to be near the music. Six older dolphins swam in the mid-water, curious but unwilling to approach as closely as the juveniles. They kept up a steady but relaxed stream of clicks and whistles, occasionally flicking their tail flukes and whistling with some energy. Steve felt they were attempting to interact with his music through their vocalizations but he couldn’t be sure. The sounds dolphins make are at the upper range of human hearing and we register only a tiny fraction of their vocal output. In addition, it’s difficult to determine which dolphin is vocalizing at any given moment. Sound travels five times faster in water than it does in air, so the ability we normally have to directionalize is lost.

After half an hour of hard breathing, Steve returned to Albury for a fresh tank of air along with the cameramen who needed to reload. Scuba tanks were changed and camera housings dried and opened so magazines could be swapped out.

The dolphins lingered around our boat roughhousing among themselves. Steve came on deck. He didn’t want to wrestle with the underwater piano any further. Now he wanted to sing into a microphone connected to underwater speakers hanging from the boat’s starboard side. It would be another experiment. He crooned a few phrases. We looked up and the dolphins had vanished. Steve looked very hurt. But at least we were learning what dolphins like and don’t like.

With the dolphins gone, Captain Mike began to organize us for the return to Marsh Harbor. As we hauled anchor and took up an easterly course, I stared at the unbroken, featureless surface of the sea. At an earlier time, I might have described the scene as desolate, but now I knew that beyond this looking glass was a world peopled by friendly and curious dolphins.

I remember little of the return trip to Marsh Harbor. Michael and I were convinced that we had a fantastic film in the can. Nothing like this had ever been filmed before. But more than that, my thoughts were of the dolphins themselves. Visions of individual faces and memories of moments of contact played behind my eyes as I stared, without focusing, at the sea, the outside world barely a distraction.

Two Years After the Cove - Taiji Still Hunting Dolphins

 By Hardy Jones, photo by Dieter Hagman, Atlantic Blue

Nearly two years have passed since The Cove won an Academy Award. There was great hope that the force of the film would end the killing at Taiji. It has not. Fishermen continue to “harden” the cove. A new slaughterhouse has been built, indicating the fishermen have no intention of stopping their brutal business. They believe, according to a highly knowledgeable Japanese expert, that they have “defeated The Cove.” There are some noteworthy changes at Taiji this fall. The number of dolphins killed is significantly down and the main victims have been Risso’s Dolphins. We are investigating why this is so. It may be that warming ocean temperatures are redistributing dolphin prey. Where the prey goes dolphins must follow. BlueVoice is investigating.

The following is a report from Dieter Hagmann, German director of AtlanticBlue and admin for BlueVoice’s European website. BlueVoice contributed funds to Dieter’s mission.

Dieter Hagmann Taiji Report 11/11

I think the new constructions are a reaction to the observation from the last season, especially the observation with the hidden camera in January this year. http://bluevoice.org/webfilms_killingattaiji.php

The new tarp area in front of the old one is for me a note that the fishermen plan to extend the protection of the cove. According to my observations, the new tarps are not in use until now. Perhaps the new tarps will only be used for big slaughters in the future.

A further new construction is the area on the left side of the cove. It consists of metal posts and wire mesh. On the top there are wooden slats. The fisherman had big problems with jumping dolphins in this area in the past. I believe that the reason for this construction is to avoid the dolphin jumping on the rocks in this area. I documented this several times, last in January this year. Especially the Striped Dolphins have the behavior to jump on the rocks in panic. I think the fishermen will do anything to avoid cruel records and documentations. Both constructions - the new tarp rows and the new construction wall on the left will help the fisherman in future to obstruct the documentations. Additionally I will send you a picture with the entrance door of the cove area. This door is also new constructed and over two meters high.

It seems to me that the fisherman will continue the killing in the future.

My work in Taiji was difficult. I was observed every day by police. The police checked me several times on the tsunami hill or in the area next to the hill. Two times they controlled (searched) my body for illegal devices. They found nothing... It is not forbidden to go on the tsunami hill, but it is not allowed to go behind the fences on tsunami hill. The police have seen me countless times on the hill, but never in an illegal action.

Hardy’s question:
“It seems all they are only killing are Risso’s dolphins. Do you know why that might be. Also the number of dolphins killed is very low."

According to my observations so far only Risso's dolphins were caught and killed. On 13 November, however, two rough-toothed dolphins trapped but not killed. They were released (no license to kill).

Hardy note: After Dieter's writing a pod of Striped Dolphins was massacred.

Why only Risso's dolphins? I do not know. I'm sure that other species are not spared. Maybe time will only be won until the conversion work completed in the cove. Until then, perhaps only Risso's dolphins are killed. Risso's dolphins are not "Flipper"-dolphins ... you know what I mean ...

Hardy Note: It is possible that changing water temperatures are causing other species – bottlenose and pilot whales – to seek food in areas away from Taiji. We can only pray. If you read my Blog on Iki you’ll have seen that dolphins, once so plentiful at Iki Island, Japan are no longer found there. http://hardyjonesdolphins.com/blog.html October 3, 2011

Yesterday I sent you a video with my best scenes from Taiji. I hope you have no problem to download the file (1 GB). You can use the video for your work.

Hardy: Great thanks to Dieter for his courage and tenacity

Hardy Note: will be posting this video shortly

 

Dolphin Altruism: Dolphins Save Me From Hammerhead Shark

The following video and blog are recounted in my book The Voice of the Dolphins. They document four spotted dolphins protecting me from a hammerhead shark. This material is posted in support of PETA's lawsuit to expand the rights of killer whales. 

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of how the dolphins felt about us came in 1985 late in the afternoon after a day of filming. Howard Hall, Julia, and other members of the underwater crew had climbed aboard the Zodiak that covered us as we worked at any distance from the main boat. I lingered at the surface, enjoying the delirious late afternoon light, my camera hanging in my right hand. The blue skies above held huge, gleaming white cumulous clouds, and toward the western horizon, blazing orange rays of sunlight shone out of the sea. The water temperature was in the high eighties. I lay on my back and experienced bliss.

Half a dozen young spotted dolphins, including a band of juveniles we’d named the Gang of Four, swam slowly over the sandy bottom thirty feet below. Occasionally, one dolphin would bite another on the tail and begin a brief, friendly tussle consisting of darting, twisting, and jaw snapping. But mostly they were grazing for bottom fish.

In the distance, at the limit of visibility, another sleek, gray creature appeared, swimming in an unusual, sine-wave manner and hugging the bottom. Its tail was not stroking up and down; it was slashing from side to side. The tail fin was vertical, and the head broad and flat. This wasn’t a dolphin. It was a very large Atlantic hammerhead shark, one of the few shark species that will attack humans. The shark moved toward me, angling first to one side then the other as though following a scent, probably mine. It was swinging its eyeballs, stuck out on the extremities of the head, so as to see its target first with one eye, then the other, perhaps to gauge distance. I didn’t feel comfortable presenting the hammerhead with the sight of my dangling legs, so I jackknifed and dove toward the bottom, raising my camera. Not only was this a unique chance to document the behavior of dolphins around sharks but raising the camera also served to put some metal between the fast-approaching predator and me.

The shark was grayish brown and about eleven feet long. I could judge its size easily because it was twice the length of the subadult dolphins swimming nearby. It undulated across the bottom, its movements now excited and menacing. I’d been diving with hammerheads in the Pacific on numerous occasions and had never felt threatened, but Atlantic hammerheads have a nasty reputation, and this one displayed the agonistic postures that precede an attack.

I hung in the water five feet over the bottom, and sooner than usual, my lungs began to ache for air. In a moment, I’d have to return to the surface. The shark turned directly toward me and accelerated with a flick of its tail. It happened so quickly that I could only react by pulling my camera tight against my body, poised to thrust it against the shark’s sensitive rostrum if it struck at me. I turned the camera on.

Suddenly the undersea world came alive with high-pitched whistles and intense sonar bursts. Two juvenile dolphins, Chopper and Stubby, appeared over my left shoulder. I flinched as I felt the wash they created streaking through the water straight for the hammerhead. In an instant, two buddies joined them, bolting in from the right.

The Gang of Four worked as a unit, diving and turning in unison like a squadron of fighter planes flying precision maneuvers.

The hammerhead saw the onrushing dolphins and, looking harassed and perplexed, jerked to the side, away from me. With powerful beats of their tail flukes, the dolphins launched themselves toward the shark’s head, clicking and whistling intensely, turning away only at the last instant. Again and again the juvenile dolphins dived at the hammerhead, mobbing it the way sparrows do a hawk, using sonar bursts to attack the shark’s lateral lines, a highly sensitive component of the shark sensory system, disorienting the huge fish.

The shark now wanted nothing more than to escape from this sudden torment. It turned one way then another but the Gang of Four were allowing it to move only in one direction—away from me. The hammerhead disappeared into the blue-green distance, and the dolphins, now tremendously excited, swam for the surface to do a series of victory leaps. One after another, they launched themselves through the surface, reentering instants later. After perhaps half a dozen leaps, Chopper cruised up to me, whistling intensely. I swam with him at the surface, trying my best to move in a way that showed the same kind of exuberance he’d displayed, but my human body dragged in the water and he had to restrain himself to stay with me. He was too excited to maintain the slow pace and darted off with his friends.

I was frankly glad to have footage of the dolphins saving me from the hammerhead. Without it, there might have been quite a bit of skepticism about this event. Some people just don’t want to admit animals are capable of altruism.  

The Voice of the Dolphins is available at Amazon: http://amzn.to/klnDw0 Kindle: http://amzn.to/pVszfc
Enhanced version with embedded video is at iTunes/iBooks http://bit.ly/nmb5v4 

Why Dolphins at Cancer Risk from Pollutants

Genetic Links between Toxins and Cancer 

by Hardy Jones

The International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) has published a report that describes a genetic link between environmental toxins and bone disease in multiple myeloma, a form of blood/bone cancer. Once considered a disease of the elderly, and a rare one at that, myeloma is increasingly being diagnose in patients under 45. The big question is "why, when many cancers are being reduced in incidence, is myeloma increasing and penetrating lower age groups?"

One possible explanation is the increase in environmental toxins. But what is the connection between the toxins and the disease?

Researchers with the IMF gene bank (Bank on a Cure) have identified changes in SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that are part of DNA sequences. These changes reduce a person's ability to process chemical toxins such as Dioxin and may lead to cancer.

The finding, published in the latest issue of the journal Leukemia, authored by Dr. Brian Durie, chair of the IMF, - http://www.myeloma.org - provide a possible link between myeloma and environmental toxins.

As these toxins rise in the marine food chain we are seeing more cases of cancer in dolphins, types of cancer never before identified in these marine mammals. Dolphins should be seen as sentinels warming us to the dangerous levels of pollution accumulating in our oceans.  For full press release on this subject go to http://bluevoice.org/news_issuescontaminants.php.

If we analyse the status of disease and pollution in dolphins worldwide we can conclude only that a global pandemic exists that now threatens dolphins and more and more is a menace to human health.

NB: The author was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2003 and when tested found to have alarmingly high levels of pollutants such as PCBs, hexachlorobenzines, and Dioxins in his body.

The Chilling Tale of What Stopped Dolphin Slaughters at Iki, Japan

 

By Hardy Jones

The first awareness of dolphin slaughters in Japan came at Iki Island, located in the Straights of Tsushima, off southwestern Japan. In 1978 a news photographer from Mainichi Television took helicopter shots of a bay whose waters ran red with the blood of hundreds of dolphins. The pictures caused widespread outrage as they were transmitted around the world.  I saw those photographs and vowed to do something about it.

In 1979 and 1980, I led Howard Hall and other filmmakers to Iki to attempt to bring an end to the killing by exposing the barbarity on film. These efforts are recounted in my book, The Voice of the Dolphins. What was not included in the book was what happened in the years that followed.

In 1979 we filmed interviews with the islanders, particularly Mr. Harada Susumu, president of the young fishermen’s cooperative. But we did not witness a slaughter – only the grim aftermath of dead dolphin bodies

In 1980 Howard Hall and I filmed the unspeakable slaughter of hundreds of dolphins at Iki. I jumped the first flight off the island to get the footage to CBS News in Tokyo where it was satellited around the world.  After the huge international uproar caused by broadcast of the film we had taken of the butchery of bottlenose, pseudorca and Risso’s dolphins, Nagasaki prefecture withdrew the permit for the Iki Islanders to hunt dolphins later in 1980. There is an individual who claims he negotiated the end to the Iki Island dolphin massacres in 1982 but that was long after the permit to hunt dolphins had been withdrawn so there was nothing to negotiate. The people responsible for shutting down the dolphin hunts were those who stood in the bloody waters of Iki Island and filmed the killing; and Dexter Cate who kayaked into the killing zone at night and cut nets in an attempt to allow dolphins to escape. Dexter was arrested and spent months in a Japanese jail before being declared persona non-grata and expelled from Japan permanently. But his trial kept the world focused on the deadly events at Iki for months.

But for two occasions, one in the middle 1980s and one in 1994, the killings at Iki ended. In those two years special permits were issued to hunt dolphins at the request of the dolphin captivity industry. Dozens of dolphins went into captivity. Hundreds died.

In 2004 I returned to Iki and learned the full story of what had happened after I released the slaughter film. I tracked down Mr. Harada, whom I’d met in 1979. He told me that in the day after I left Iki in ‘79 (to get the film footage safely to CBS News in Tokyo) more than 200 journalists had descended on the island. Iki Island became infamous worldwide – a symbol of brutality to animals and shame for Japan. This massive media turn out was part of what caused the permit to capture dolphins to be withdrawn in 1980.

During my 2004 visit I videotaped an interview with the former head of the Katsumoto Fishing Cooperative, the organization that carried out the dolphin hunts, I learned a perverse irony – where once thousands of dolphins migrated by the island, today there are none. More perversely still, the fishermen who had once attempted to eradicate dolphins now wish they had could find and catch them for the lucrative aquarium trade. But there are none. Dolphins have vanished from the waters off Iki. And why is that?

Is it because the fish stocks that constituted dolphin prey have been decimated forcing the dolphins to seek food elsewhere? Is it because warming waters around the island have changed prey distribution and thus moved the dolphins elsewhere? Is it possible the dolphins learned to avoid the waters off Iki Island? Or is it because the dolphins that once migrated past Iki were simply wiped out? Any or all of these is possible.

Another shocking revelation came from the union official Sakae Hemmi and I interviewed in 2004. Standing in a room whose shelves and tables were covered with every imaginable form of dolphin statuette, plate, cup, kite or statue, he said the true reason they stopped hunting dolphins was that it was too costly to bury them. “Burying hundreds of dolphins is not cheap.” My mind chilled at the words. So the tale of what really ended the killing at Iki mimics Rashomon. Everyone sees the story through their own lens, the focus defined by memory or loss of it, ego, and fund raising strategies. And in some cases the pursuit of the truth.

My purpose in writing this blog is to illustrate the complexity of westerners trying to bring about change in Japan. More than a year after the tsunami of protest brought about by the film The Cove, dolphin hunts are still carried out at Taiji. After countless petitions and calls for boycotts the killer boats still sortie after dolphins.

Where I am putting my efforts and those of BlueVoice is into testing dolphin meat and publishing the results in order to drive down the market for the meat and make the drives financially unviable.

The story of our work at Iki in 1979 including lessons for those fighting to end the dolphin hunts in Japan is in The Voice of the Dolphins. http://hardyjonesdolphins.com/

Chronology of Efforts to End Dolphin Slaughter at Taiji

                                                  Photo by Dieter Hagmann



by Hardy Jones

This posting attempts to cover only events at Taiji, deliberately omitting what occurred at Iki and Izu during the late 1970s and early 1980s. I welcome any additions or corrections by email.

Admittedly this chronology is heavy in references to BlueVoice due to the fact that I am most familiar with our work. Again, I invite additions and corrections from informed sources.

In 1980 Howard Hall and Hardy Jones, while en route to Iki Island to film a dolphin slaughter, learned of the capture of 200 melon-headed whales (actually a species of dolphin) at Taiji, Japan. They brought their cameras to Taiji and were able to effect the release of all the melon-heads.

In 1999 the massacre of a group of bottlenose dolphins at Futo came to the attention of CBS News. Hardy Jones was interviewed on the subject and seeing the ghastly footage decided to return to Japan to see what might be done to end the dolphin killing.

In 2001 Hardy met Sakae Hemmi, of Japan’s Elsa Nature Conservancy, and the two worked together at Taiji and Futo to end the dolphin killing. They returned each year, in some years accompanied by photographer Larry Curtis, during dolphin hunting season with Hardy filming and Sakae gathering data.

During the early 2000s Environmental Investigation Agency sent representatives to Taiji who were treated very roughly.

In 2002 Hardy’s film, When Dolphins Cry, premiered on National Geographic Channels worldwide. It portrayed the killing of dolphins at Taiji and the story of the conversion of Izumi Ishii from dolphin hunter to dolphin watch leader.

In 2003 representatives of Sea Shepherd went to Taiji. Two of their members cut nets holding dolphins in Hatagajiri Bay. Whether any dolphins escaped is an open question. But the act brought both international news coverage and heightened security at the killing cove.

2003 was also the first year of Ric O’Barry’s efforts to end the killing of dolphins at Taiji. He has returned to Taiji for extended periods each year since and later starred in the film The Cove.

In 2005 PBS broadcast Hardy Jones’ The Dolphin Defender, a film that included both the story of the slaughter of dolphins at Taiji and the beginning of dolphin watching at Futo.

During much of the first decade of the 2000s WDCS supported the work of BlueVoice in Japan and conducted outreach programs elsewhere in Japan to educate the Japanese public about the dolphin slaughter and the dangers of consuming mercury laden dolphin meat.

During the years 2007, 08, 09, 10 and 2011 German journalist Dieter Hagmann visited Taiji and brought back extraordinary footage of the brutality of the dolphins slaughter. His work appeared in TV-Stations: ARD, ZDF. Newspapers: SUN (British), Bild (German), Aftonbladet (Sweden), Associated Press (Japan), Zeeburg Nieuws (Netherland) Press Agencies: PRNewswire, asiaprnews, Reuters, CNW, DPA with many online publications.

Since 2006 BlueVoice, in conjunction with Elsa Nature Conservancy, has been conducting tests of dolphin meat for mercury and organic pollutants such as PCBs. Results have shown high to exceptionally high levels of these contaminants. Tests also showed extremely high levels of mercury in persons who consumed dolphin meat.

In 2007 surfing legend Dave Rastovich along with film star Hayden Pantierre paddled surf boards into Hatagajiri Bay and brought international attention to the situation at Taiji.

At roughly this time, a film crew organized by Louie Psihoyos began work on a film centered around Ric O’Barry and his crusade to stop the killing at Taiji. The result would be a documentary film named “The Cove.”

In 2008 a Japanese journalist, Hiroshi Hasegawa, received data developed by Elsa and BlueVoice that documented high levels of mercury in four dolphin-eating Taiji citizens. Hasegawa then conducted additional testing that found even higher numbers for mercury among the dolphin-eating population. The results were published in AERA, a major Japanese magazine. His article spurred the National Institute for Minamata Disease to propose testing citizens of Taiji for mercury. The tests showed that citizens of the town had very high levels of mercury but claimed they found no impact on health. That conclusion has been widely disparaged by international experts.

In 2010 the Psihoyos film, The Cove, won film festival after film festival culminating in winning an Academy Award. This film brought a tsunami of protest against the practice of killing dolphins and raised the issue around the world. Psihoyos and his cohorts have continued their efforts in Japan to end the dolphin slaughter and The Cove continues to reach audiences worldwide.

During the 2010 – 11 hunting season Sea Shepherd maintained a group of activists at Taiji known as the Cove Guardians. They provided web reporting throughout the entire period of the hunt.

In 2011 BlueVoice sponsored tests conducted by Elsa Nature Conservancy of dolphin meat from Okinawa and Taiji. The tests showed elevated levels of mercury and PCBs. The tests results have been widely disseminated in Japan.

At the beginning of the 2011 – 2012 dolphin hunting season Ric O’Barry organized a prayer vigil at Taiji and, along with associates such as Leilani Munter, provided information on the hunt during September.

Sea Shepherd Cove Guardians also returned to Taiji and are reporting from the scene.

Despite these extensive efforts the hunt and slaughter continues.

MacIntosh to Dolphins. Do You Read Me?

The following blog is an excerpt from The Voice of the Dolphins. It's an account of our second effort in 2004 to communicate with dolphins by computer and yielded surprising results. For more on The Voice of the Dolphins go to http://hardyjonesdolphins.com.

The computer communication system John Ross had devised produced some interesting results during the final days of the trip. I joined John standing on the white sand bottom in about fifteen feet of water. Dolphins lazed around us. It seemed a silent world except for the inhalation and exhalation of our scuba tanks and some barely audible high frequency clicks and whistles from the dolphins. But when John passed me the frequency shifting headphones, what had seemed to be a piccolo turned into a full symphony orchestra. Once again, I realized that for dolphins, it’s not a silent world but rather a phenomenally rich three-dimensional acoustical universe, each sound conveying meaning, nuance, and vast amounts of information. Humans’ inability to hear dolphins is one of the reasons most experience them as mute.

John transmitted two kinds of calls from the computer. The first was a synthesized call similar in pitch to an actual dolphin whistle but was not the real thing. The dolphins returned that call with a perfect imitation, just as they had in 1978.

Then something surprising happened. John recorded dolphin vocal output and replayed those sounds to the dolphins. They responded not with mimicry but with an original phrase as though attempting to carry on the conversation. Of course, we didn’t know what they had said in the first place or what their reply was to the playback. I don’t delude myself into thinking that our efforts will somehow crack the code of dolphin communication. But there is a meta-message in what is taking place in those turquoise waters over brilliant white sand and that is that both species are interested in the interaction. That is the message and it is huge.