Its that time of year again…
…hang on, lets rewind a little. Back in May this year a fascinating study emerged from the University of Bern, Switzerland. It found that in orcas, as in humans, culture is not only clearly evident as an important social factor in their lives but also helps drive genetic evolution. It noted that, essentially, a few individuals can colonise new habitats and ecological niches thanks to their behavioural flexibility. Group culture then transmits the know how of surviving on new resources, which, like humans, becomes encoded in their genomes and sets the group on a separate evolutionary track.
The study, hailed by both marine and genome researchers as an extremely important piece of research, found the species, uniquely in common with humans as far as science has so far been able to establish, share a number of unusual features with us, including their intelligence, longevity and social natures. These work together to create an ideal environment for social learning which can strengthen group identity and reinforce genetic distinction. For the orca, called the killer whale but belonging to the oceanic dolphin family of which it is its largest member, like humans, culture is in the driving seat.
This commonality, the shared bond of lived experience and acculturation between these cetaceans and humans is a unique, beautiful and natural thing. Misunderstandings of shared similarities in a should be bygone age of sea life aquariums which use orcas and dolphins for human entertainment, where they are exploited for profit, evolving goodness knows what cultures of slavery, entrapment, resentment etc are grudgingly being acknowledged in some places. Alas, not in Japan, where the pacifist constitution does not extend to all sentient creatures capable of evolving culture.
And so back to where we came in. Its that time of year again, for the places which still keep cetaceans captive for entertainment to place their orders for those who jump the highest, look the prettiest and are spared the annual butchery and slaughter of their apparently less attractive species mates in Japan’s inlet of Taiji, made infamous by the documentary ‘The Cove’.
Between September and April as many as 2,000 dolphins will be driven inland, leaping for their lives, then killed for their meat, turning the sea waters blood red. They will be killed for their meat despite warnings that high amounts of heavy metals in it cause lowered immune systems, fertility issues and premature dementia. They will be killed because a lucrative industry exists where oceanariums will pay up to $150,000 for prize specimens.
A prominent opponent of the cull, activist star of ‘The Cove’, Ric O'Barry, was detained by the Japanese authorities before this year’s ‘season’ and deported, with alleged violation of his work visa cited as the reason. The timing of his detention and deportation is difficult to interpret as anything but an attempt to deter his involvement in attempting to sabotage this year’s cull. For the first time in fourteen years he will not be ‘on the ground’ in direct opposition to it.
O’Barry admits, ‘I’ve been operating out of guilt. I helped create this industry’, alluding to the fact that before the cull began in 1959, there was no market for captive cetaceans. He was the original trainer for the Flipper TV series, capturing and training five dolphins.
In 1970 O’Barry performed a volte face and formed the Dolphin Project, fighting to free captive cetaceans worldwide and in particular to stop the Taiji cull. This year, prevented from returning to Japan, he was one of the chief organisers of Japan Dolphin Day on September 1st. Protests were organised, as they have been in recent years with gathering support, worldwide outside Japanese embassies.
An added impetus was given to this year’s protest with hopes of shaming the Japanese government into action before the world’s attention is turned upon their country as hosts for the 2020 Olympics. O’Barry attended and spoke at the event outside the embassy in London. He is appealing against his deportation and if successful will return to attempt further sabotage and highlighting of the ongoing cull with his fellow protestors from the Dolphin Project. He also admits to feeling his own mortality creeping up on him and says, ‘At 77, I’m running out of time!’.
Whilst a new generation takes up the cause, I cannot help but wonder, as killing seems so endemic to human culture, if the few recent instances of orcas filmed hunting other cetaceans is the result of learned, acculturated behaviour. It would be no less than humans deserve if this developed into a concerted effort and pursuit of their would be captors and killers too.
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