Danger: Falling Rocks and Failing Cover Ups

Nik Hensey is an animal rights activist who spent several months in Taiji during the drive hunt to try and capture the massacre on film. In his recent interview with the Sea Shepherd News, he talks about his experiences with both the fishermen and the City Hall officials. 

There are some who have called us "terrorists" for saving dolphins here. If we are terrorists for believing that life is more important than property, than what terms does one reserve for those who take life, threaten life, and engage in the wholesale slaughter of innocent life? One must ask her/himself: "What drives someone to the point where s/he feels it necessary to jump into cold waters to save a pod of dolphins?" That pod of dolphins four days ago would have been butchered (except for those that were to be sold into captivity) and the local government, police, and whalers have made it impossible for us to document the slaughter and to educate the public about the massacres of Taiji. We were left no alternative as the Taiji Town Office and local police made it illegal to climb rocks and hillsides, walk near a pod of penned dolphins after 5:30pm, say out overnight in the hills, or go anywhere within eyesight of the blockaded cove as there was a "danger" of "falling rocks" that was only present when a pod was driven in.

It's one thing to deal with the ignorance of the individual fishermen, but going up against them when they have government support and legal backing is painfully discouraging.

The bogus new laws of Taiji and their "Danger: Falling Rocks, No Trespassing" signs are nothing more than a smokescreen for the bloody slaughter that occurs behind those signs and obstructions. Clearly there was no danger of falling rocks, but like their "culture" argument, it is an attempt at a baseless defense for brutality that has no legitimate defense in the 21st century. The fact of the matter is that the dolphin drives of Taiji are big business for a handful of men, and the biggest profit comes not from dolphin and whale meat, but from the live dolphins that are sold into captivity. If aquariums and "swimming with the dolphins" operations are a part of Japanese "culture," than I might stand corrected. But first show me the Kanji scrolls.

Perhaps the danger isn't falling rocks, but a crumbling industry that's bound for extinction. 

It's quite the metaphor, actually.