Tag Archives: International Whaling Commission

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 14 – 16 June

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Despite an international ban on whaling, Japan has announced that it has killed 30 Minke whales in its ‘research‘ program.  The Japanese government is planning to apply to the International Whaling Commission for permission to hunt whales from next year again.

*   Babylonstoren has received a fantastic write-up on the online Forbes site, entitled ‘Harvest the Colourful Bounty at Babylonstoren, South Africa, and praised it as follows: ‘Easily the most  vibrant and distinct of all converted farms in the valley‘.

*   Grazia magazine calls Hallelujah on Kloofnek Road ‘The Hottest restaurant in Cape Town‘ and describes it as the ‘2014 It restaurant’, for its interior decor and its lobster rolls and slow-roasted pulled pork buns.

*   Airlines servicing South Africa are unprepared for the new controversial Department of Home Continue reading →

007 to the rescue of …whales, and more shoots!

Former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan has boldly appealed to President Obama to help put an end to illegal whaling, reports CBS.  Brosnan paid for and appears in an “Save the Whales Now” advertisement, in which he reminds the President of his promise, whilst a candidate for the White House, that he was going to stop illegal whaling.

The “Save the Whales Now” campaign is a joint effort by the following organisations: Humane Society of the United States, The International Fund for Animal Welfare, The Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Ocean Alliance.   It encourages viewers to call the President personally, by providing a telephone number.  The Brosnan ad can be viewed here.

Halle Berry, Oscar-winning actress, and Oliver Martinez are currently in Cape Town, to shoot “Dark Tide” in Simonstown.  Berry plays the role of a diving instructor who comes face-to-face with sharks on a deserted island in the movie, reports the Sunday Times.   Local marine professionals have been retained by the producers, to provide support, whilst a local team of stunt co-ordinators has also been hired.   Filming has taken place in Simonstown harbour and at Seal Island.   The production company has set up its base at Seaforth Beach in Simonstown.

Commenting on the making of the movie, shark conservationist Alison Kock of Save Our Seas Foundation told the Sunday Times that they decided to not get involved and assist the producers, after they had seen the script, and it appeared to be a “shark attack” movie, a thriller in which the actors fight off a shark attack.  Her society’s mandate is to present the positive side of sharks, especially given shark attacks in False Bay generally, and specifically in Fish Hoek at the beginning of the year, when Lloyd Skinner died from being attacked by a Great White Shark.

A fascinating project is that of an Australian movie “Whale Like Me”,which film-maker Malcolm Wright is making.  Wright does not support the catching of whales by the Japanese, and came up with the idea of a documentary, in which the Japanese and the conservationists opposed to whaling swop roles, a “walk a mile in my shoes” type of movie, reports The Australian.  Wright will be living with a whaling family and join a whale hunt off the coast of Japan, while whalers will live with him in the Cook Islands and will swim with humpback whales in the area.

Wright says of his novel documentary: “The key to the film is reconciliation and the way we see reconciliation is walking a mile in each other’s shoes.  My standpoint is we have to now shift from a moratorium on sustainability grounds to a moratorium on ethical grounds, and at least have an international exchange of ideas and come to a conclusion of some sort”.   Hideki Fuji, a Japanese film-maker working on the project challenges the anti-whaling sentiment, asking how whaling and eating whales is different to “the harvesting of other animals for human consumption”.   Wright worked with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, and hopes to get his movie released in cinemas.  Filming is planned to start this month.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

Whale peace, not whale wars, needed

The recent draft “Peace Plan”, developed by a group of 12 member countries of the International Whaling Commission, for sanction and approval at its next meeting in June in Morocco, should be supported as a “realistic compromise”, says South Africa’s doyen of whale and dolphin conservation, Nan Rice, of the Dolphin Action and Protection Group, reports the Cape Argus.

Rice was commenting on the draft plan to allow controlled commercial whaling for the next ten years, as it would reduce the number of whales that Japan, Norway and Iceland would kill collectively, compared to the current ruling, which allows these countries to kill whales for “scientific purposes”.   She did state, however, that as long as whaling countries can make money out of whaling, it would be impossible to stop them from killing whales completely.

Greenpeace, an international environmental activist group, has criticised the peace plan, saying that it is not strict enough, and does not indicate any attempt to ultimately stop whaling in the whale sanctuary, and it still allows the fin whale, an endangered species, to be killed.   Restricted commercial whaling would allow the Japanese to sell whale meat for human consumption in Japan.

However, the “Peace Plan” includes a proposal for a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, scrapping the ‘scientific’ whaling loophole used by the Japanese in the main, the reduction in the number of whales caught in the ten year period, and a restructuring of the Commission, all of which are positive aspects, according to Greenpeace.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

Movie Review: ‘The Cove’ is a whale of an Oscar movie

Whales and dolphins are an emotive topic, and Oscar-winning Best Documentary “The Cove” pulls out all the stops in appealing to the hearts of viewers of its documentary about the dolphin capture and slaughter in Taija in Japan.

The story starts with Ric O’Barry, who was an actor in the ‘Flipper’ TV series many years ago.   When the beloved dolphin ‘star’ of the series dies in his arms, in a suicide he says, he saw the light, and realised that it is cruel to keep dolphins in captivity.  Dolphins are particularly sound-sensitive, and any noise in a captive environment will make dolphins kill themselves.   Since he became aware of this, O’Barry became a dolphin activist, and was arrested on many occasions, being caught whilst releasing dolphins kept in captivity.  

When he heard about the bottle-nose dolphins that are cornered into a cove in Taiji by means of a banging sound from fishing boats, and then captured for resale to dolphinariums and aquariums around the world, at an income of $ 150 000 each, or killed for the sale of their meat, he decides that he must get involved, despite the danger this entails.   He connects with the Ocean Preservation Society, which takes on his cause, and he and its leader Louie Psihoyos, a previous National Geographic photographer who becomes the executive director of the movie, assemble a team of dedicated activists that believe in protecting dolphins.  Jointly the team installs underwater cameras and sound equipment in the cove, as well as on the hillside overlooking it, in a dangeous operation, so that the torrid actions of the Japanese fishermen can be documented for the world to see.  The red sea water after each killing is enough to get every cinema-goer involved.

Two further themes run through the movie.  Firstly, much footage comes from the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) 2006 meeting in St Kitts, which reflects the Japanese registering new members they pay to vote in favour of their whaling activities.  Many of them are islands in the Bahamas.   In the Commission meeting many of these are filmed sleeping during the proceedings, and not knowing which whale types pass by their countries!   It shows the IWC to be an ineffective organisation, which does not concern itself with the preservation of dolphins and porpoises, even though they are defined as whale species.  It also documents the abuse of the Japanese in being allowed whaling for “scientific research” purposes.   This is what the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is fighting in the Antarctic, south of Australia, actively attacking Japanese whaling boats in this whale sanctuary, to prevent them from killing whales.  The Society’s founder and leader Captain Paul Watson is as determined to stop the slaughter of whales as is Ric O’Barry in stopping the slaughter of dolphins.

Secondly, the documentary presents information that the 23 000 dolphins that are killed in Japan annually are sold as whale meat, unbeknown to the Japanese population, that would not touch dolphin meat as food.   Despite this, a school feeding programme had intended to serve dolphin meat to children at Japanese schools, until the results of the research initiated by the Ocean Preservation Society proved that dolphin meat contains poisonous levels of mercury.  The dolphin meat school feeding programme was stopped as a result.

Each of the activists that participated in the dangerous mission, and the documentary producers and cameramen deserve an Oscar for their brave actions, which could have led to their arrest.  O’Barry, the initiator of the dolphin rescue action, has expressed his regret for ever making dolphin petting and dolphin training popular via the “Flipper” TV series.

Actress and singer Hayden Panettiere and her boxing champion boyfriend Vladimir Klitschko recently visited Taiji, Osaka and Tokyo to focus attention on her ‘Save the Whales Again!’ campaign, on the strength of the outrage that ‘The Cove’ has created, and to encourage the fishermen of Taiji to make their money from other means.

Recently producer Louie Psihoyos took on a sushi restaurant, called Hump, in Santa Monica, and exposed that it serves whale meat.  It has since closed its doors.

The documentary encourages viewers to take part in the campaign to save dolphins.  Its website www.takepart.com invites viewers to write to their leaders and to spread the word about what the Japanese are doing in Taiji; to learn more about the effect on dolphins of being kept in captivity; to calculate one’s own mercury exposure; to assist ‘Save Japan Dolphins’; and to send donations to the filmmakers.   More information about the movie can be read at www.thecovemovie.com.

POSTSCRIPT 23/10: Earlier this week Cape Town dolphin-lovers showed their support to the dolphins of Japan and of the International Save Japan’s Dolphins Day, by hanging three blood-covered dolphin replicas from the unfinished highway in the Cape Town city centre.  We are grateful to the photographer Jordi Matas for the use of the photograph (www.portfolio.jordimatas.net).

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com