STOP KILLING THE DOLPHINコミュの朗報！　日本の大手チェーンストアーがすべてのイルカ肉を永久に販売停止することを表明

■GREAT NEWS! 日本の大手チェーンストアーがすべてのイルカ肉を永久に販売停止することを表明


まあ、当然ですね。

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日本のイルカを救うための連盟４団体：動物福祉協会（AWI）* アースアイランド
研究所 (EII) * エルザ自然保護の会(ENC) * 動物擁護の会(IDA)による発表


The Okuwa Supermarket has announced that the ban on selling dolphin meat is now PERMANENT!
http://savejapandolphins.org/

日本語のプレスリリースはこちら。　２００７年１月１２日付
http://www.earthisland.org/saveTaijiDolphins/assets/okuwaReleaseInJapanese.pdf


２００７年１月８日、大手チェーンストアー「オークワ」（社長：大桑啓嗣、本社:和歌山市）が、全店において永久にイルカ肉の販売を停止すると発表した。

この決定は、株式会社「オークワ」が、同店で販売しているイルカ肉が日本の厚生労働省が定めた暫定安全基準（0.4ppm）の13.5倍に達する水銀によって汚染されているという指摘を受けてなされたものである。この指摘を行なったのは、日本で執筆活動を続けている「２００６年ジェネシス賞」受賞ジャーナリスト・報道写真家ボイド･ハーネル氏(Boyd Harnell）であり、それを支えたのは国際的に活動している環境･動物保護団体である「日本のイルカを救うための連盟団体」、特にＥＩＩ所属のリチャード･オバリーの協力であった。

１９３８年創業の株式会社「オークワ」は、これまで南紀地区において、和歌山県太地漁港で追い込み猟(*)によって水揚げされたイルカから肝臓､腎臓を切除して製造、加工したイルカ肉を販売してきた。だが、同店で販売しているイルカの肉が水銀に汚染されているという指摘を受けて、イルカ肉について独自の汚染調査を実施した。そして、その調査結果が出る以前に、同社による独自調査の数値結果がどのようなものであっても会社の方針として、イルカ肉の販売を、以後、永久に停止することに踏み切った。
（*)イルカは哺乳類であることから、本連盟では漁でなく、猟と表現している。

「日本のイルカを救うための連盟」４団体、動物福祉協会（AWI）、 アースアイランド研究所 (EII)、エルザ自然保護の会(ENC)、動物擁護の会(IDA)は、株式会社「オークワ」の英断に心からの敬意を示し、日本で初めて行なわれたこの決定が、水銀その他の汚染食品から日本国民を守るための重要な布石となり、国際的に問題視されている日本のイルカ猟及び汚染されたイルカ肉の販売等の歯止めになることを強く望むものである。

参考資料：
＊株式会社オークワの会社概要：資本金：141億1,749万円、従業員数：12,500名、店舗数：和歌山、大阪、奈良、三重に129店舗（平成１８年２月２０日現在）、ホームページ：http://www/okuwa.net/ 本社：電話073-425-2481(代表)

＊イルカ肉などの水銀汚染の解明で世界的に知られる研究者である北海道医療大学薬学部の遠藤哲也博士は、単独での研究及び共同研究で分析したイルカ肉が高レベルの水銀に汚染されていることから、イルカ肉を食べることに以前から警告を発している。

＊今回、暫定安全基準値の13.5倍に当たる5.4ppmが検出されたスジイルカの肉は
「日本のイルカを救うための連盟」の一員であるリチャード・オバリーが、２００６年１１月に新宮セントラルオークワで購入してジャーナリストであるボイド・ハーネル氏に送り、ボイド氏がそれを東京にある独自の機関で検査したものである。
参照：http://www.SaveJapanDolphins.org

＊２００６年１１月１日付The Japan Times紙の一面に掲載されたボイド・ハーネル氏による記事"Dolphin kill dogged by mercury, activists" は、日本で販売されているイルカ肉の水銀汚染の実体を取り上げている。

＊日本では、毎年、およそ20,000頭近いイルカや小型鯨類が殺されている。この内、追い込み猟による捕獲枠数は約3,000頭だが、その捕獲方法の残酷さに、世界の海棲哺乳類学者やこれまでイルカの捕獲を容認してきた世界動物園水族館協会（ＷＡＺＡ）が追い込み猟の禁止を日本政府へ要請している。
参照：http://www/actfordolphins.org　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
以上
　

日本の大手チェーンストアーがすべてのイルカ肉を永久に販売停止することを表明


英語原文

The Okuwa Supermarket has announced that the ban on selling dolphin meat is now PERMANENT!
http://savejapandolphins.org/

Read the press release in English and also in Japanese (.pdf, ~100k).

You may recall that we bought a package of striped dolphin meat from the Shingu Okuwa Supermarket on December 12th last year and delivered it to journalist Boyd Harnell who is documenting the story of mercury poisoned dolphin meat for The Japan Times. Harnell sent the meat to an independent lab in Tokyo for testing.

As a result of these tests, the Okuwa Supermarket Corporation decided to ban the sale of all dolphin meat in all of their stores on December 26, 2006. They said that they would need to conduct testing of their own to determine whether or not the ban was going to be permanent or temporary.

The supermarket chain and conglomerate, which is comprised of drug stores, movie theatres, home store centers, sports clubs, hotels and amusement facilities, reported in an e-mail message to Harnell:

"We have decided, as a matter of company policy, that we will discontinue permanently the sale of dolphin meat regardless of test results currently being conducted by the company at an independent lab." The supermarket adds: "Those test results will be concluded next week, but the results will not be revealed."

The Save Japn Dolphins coalition (Earth Island Institute, Elsa Nature Conservancy of Japan, Animal Welfare Institute, and In Defense of Animals) considers this recent development to be major progress in our efforts to stop the sale and export of Japanese dolphin meat.

Times reporter Harnell initiated the random sample tests and deserves much credit for this new development.

Our follow up work will now focus on getting other stores in Japan to follow the lead of the Okuwa Supermarket chain and ban dolphin meat from their shelves.

Our coalition members want to formally thank the Okuwa Supermarket chain for their landmark decision to protect the Japanese people from contaminated food products.

Ric and Helene O’Barry are filing reports for the Save Taiji Dolphins Campaign on behalf of Earth Island Institute, Elsa Nature Conservancy of Japan, Animal Welfare Institute and In Defense of Animals.

To read earlier weblog entries, click here.

In the Japanese fishing village of Taiji, fishermen are rounding up and slaughtering hundreds and even thousands of dolphins right now.

After driving pods of dolphins into shallow coves, the fishermen kill the dolphins, slashing their throats with knives or stabbing them with spears. Thrashing about, the dolphins take as long as six minutes to die. The water turns red with their blood and the air fills with their screams.

This brutal massacre ? the largest scale dolphin kill in the world ? goes on for six months of every year. Even more shocking, the captive dolphin industry is an accomplice to the kill.


Click on this graphic to view an animation that explains how the drive
fishery in Taiji operates, as dolphins are rounded up and forced into
shallow water with nets and underwater noise.
Animation by Rattle the Cage Productions.

Taiji ? the Killing Zone

Between October 1st - December 13th 2004 the fishermen of Taiji reported the capture 609 dolphins (389 bottlenose dolphins and 220 Risso’s dolphins) to the Fisheries section of Wakayama Prefecture. While most of the 609 dolphins were slaughtered for human consumption, dolphin trainers selected some of the young and unblemished dolphins for use in captive dolphin swim programs and dolphin shows.


A huge amount of blood is swirling with the currents after a
pod of Risso’s dolphins has been eradicated in the most
gruesome way imaginable. The dolphins fought for their lives
even as their guts were ripped from their bellies and blood
gushed out of their blowholes.
Photo by Genna Naccache
During the hunting season that began October 1st 2003 and ended March 30th 2004 the fishermen of Taiji killed 1,165 dolphins:

444 Striped dolphins
197 bottlenose dolphins
102 Pantropical spotted dolphins
293 Risso’s dolphins
117pilot whales
12 false killer whales

In that same period they captured 78 dolphins for sale to dolphinaria:

67 bottlenose dolphins
6 Risso’s dolphins
5 pseudo orcas

A measure of our success

Japanese fishermen kill the largest number of dolphins anywhere in the world and dolphins and porpoises face grave danger in Japan’s coastal waters when the annual hunt begins. This year the drive fishery, a method in which dolphins are forced ashore and hacked to death, has taken place in Taiji and Futo. We traveled to both of these fishing villages to document the massacres and expose them to the world.

In Taiji the annual dolphin hunt starts October 1st and continues through March 30th. Here, the massacre of dolphins is strongly encouraged by three local dolphinariums that purchase show-quality dolphins at a high cost and ship some of them off to othe facilities in Japan and abroad.


The slaughterhouse is covered with blue tarp
to prevent us from videotaping the bloody scene.
Photo by Helene O’Barry
We were able to film the entire capture procedure in January last year when more than 100 bottlenose dolphins were forced ashore and some 20 dolphins selected by dolphinaria. Several dolphins were killed during the selection process and our powerful footage was recently aired by the BBC in a documentary entitled "Dolphin Hunters" and has been viewed by more than 300 million people worldwide.

This kind of major international exposure is the last thing the fishermen and the dolphin captivity industry want, and it came as no surprise to us that they were fuming with anger upon our return to Taiji in October.

Since the beginning of our campaign to expose the barbaric methods used to capture and kill dolphins, the fishermen have gone to extreme effort and expense to prevent us from carrying out our documentary work. What they are doing to the dolphins is so brutal; they know they have to conceal it from the rest of the world to avoid a huge international outcry.


The fishermen have driven a large pod of bottlenose
dolphins into the killing cove. They are cutting off the
dolphins’ escape with two nets placed 50 feet apart.
Photo by Helene O’Barry
They used to carry out the massacres in a large lagoon by a public road, but the mounting exposure has forced them into one last hiding place; a small cove hidden between two mountains. The cove is part of a public park and tourists from all of Japan come here to walk the picturesque trails along one of the most spectacular coastlines in the world.

During the drive fishery season, which lasts six months out of the year, the fishermen take the area into their possession, employing exceptionally hostile tactics to keep westerners and Japanese tourists away from the cove while dolphins are being killed. In doing so they have created a threatening and sinister atmosphere in an otherwise beautiful and friendly village.

Hiding their activities the best they can has been part of the fishermen’s policy for years but they have now taken their cover-up to a new, fanatic level. Supported by local authorities they have banned us from climbing the mountain from where we can see the killing cove.

They are so scared of our cameras; they have tied barbed wire around the trees we used to climb to photograph the massacres and at the top of the mountain have installed a hideous wall made of fabric and plastic to block our view. They have tied metal chains to trees everywhere along the paths leading to the killing cove. Attached to the chains are signs with hand-written words of warning: "Keep Out!" and "No trespassing!"


The fishermen have erected a tall canvas
wall at the top of the mountain to prevent
us from filming the dolphin massacres.
Photo by Helene O’Barry
After the massacre the water remains red with blood for hours and the ludicrous signs warning people of non-existent dangers such as "Falling rocks!" and "Mud-slides!" are not removed until after the sea has washed the blood away and all evidence of the butchery has vanished.

The fishermen have even erected a large piece of fabric across the mouth of the cove to prevent us from photographing the bloodbath from a boat and as further proof of their deep-rooted fear of the truth being known to the world have placed a gigantic piece of blue tarp across the entire killing cove so we can’t film the massacres, not even from a helicopter.

The fishermen have succeeded in hiding the massacres almost to perfection but their strategy is backfiring in a way they probably did not anticipate. The dolphin slaughter is surrounded by so much contemptible deception and is so profoundly guarded; it has raised much curiosity among the visiting Japanese tourists who wonder what the secrecy is all about. We spoke to many of them and the one thing they kept asking was: "What are the fishermen doing behind the blue tarp that’s so terrible that no one is allowed to see it?"

The extreme cover-up is undermining one of the fishermen’s principal justifications for killing dolphins: That it’s a tradition they are proud of. If they are truly proud of killing dolphins, then why are they so frantic about hiding it? The fact that they hide the bloodbath behind blue tarp, chains, barbed wire and walls of fabric reveals that they are well aware that the dolphin massacres, once fully exposed, will be viewed as deplorable by the rest of the world, including the Japanese people.

The fishermen spend a lot of time waving large signs in front of our camera lenses, yelling, "Don’t take photos!" What they are really saying is, "We have something to hide."

By acting so hostile and secretive, they involuntarily bring more attention to themselves and the dolphin massacres. As a young girl visiting from Tokyo put it: "I never realized that dolphins are being killed here until I saw that creepy-looking blue plastic covering the lagoon."


The bloody cove after the massacre.
Photo by Genna Naccache


c 2006, Earth Island Institute, Elsa Nature Conservancy, In Defense of Animals, Animal Welfare Institute. All Rights Reserved.