This is continued from the last blog.  It is about the second Japanese documentary film that dealt with dolphin killing at Taiji, Japan.

In the mid-1970s I heard from a friend that there were rumors of an annual Japanese dolphin slaughter. I have gone to Japan every year since 1970 so I added the source of rumor to my travel plans.  I easily found Japanese who told me where the dolphin hunting was being done.  I took a few trains to the small fishing village in the Southern end of a peninsula on the main Island of Honshu not far from Kyoto. I spent a few days in Taiji and was invited to a town dinner festival.  Everyone in town was there including a dozen children running wild.

I talked to men at the fishing coop and visited the dolphin memorial statue.  I was generously entertained by several families and had a wonderful time.

I saw the harbor where six hundred dolphins were killed annually after being herded into a cove and saw photos of the slaughter.

Having seen the racial prejudice of Americans toward the Japanese in the anti-whaling movement and personally being offended by the arrogance of one culture attacking the eating habits of another culture, I was particularly worried how Americans would react to news about the dolphin killing. Americans love dolphins even more than whales.

I met with a few Japanese governmental officials and explained how important it was to keep stories about the Taiji dolphin harvest from being covered in Japanese media. They understood and concurred.

When I returned to San Francisco I wrote an article about the Taiji dolphin harvest.  I consciously pulled at the heart strings of my fellow environmentalists by describing the close-knit fishing cooperative and the religious ceremonies dedicated to the souls of the dead dolphins.  I wrote about the ancient ritual of a traditional people.

The leading environmental weekly spread my article, with photos, on the whole two middle pages.  

It appears that this article was widely read and forestalled American outrage over the dolphin harvest for the next thirty years.  That was the subject of the Japanese documentary.

By the year 2003, a new generation of American environmentalists arrived and made the Taiji dolphin hunt a popular subject of outrage including a film that won an Oscar.