Newswise — On the 10th anniversary of their capture, WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, is asking people to remember the 10 orcas (killer whales) that were trapped and removed from the wild near the coastal town of Taiji, Japan, and for the Japanese authorities to refuse permission for further orca captures in Japanese waters.
Following their capture in a drive hunt on February 7th 1997, five of the Taiji orcas were transferred to aquaria around Japan. Of those five, only two survive today. Internationally, of the 135 orcas known to have been taken from the wild and sold to captive facilities since 1961, 86% are now dead. WDCS wants to see an end to the captive display of all whales and dolphins and 'live capture' methods used to catch them, which can be violent and lead to the deaths of more animals than just those removed for captivity [1].
The statistics highlight the suffering endured by these highly sentient and usually long-lived animals. WDCS also has serious concerns that further live captures could have implications for the continued survival and conservation of orcas in the western North Pacific. Despite the statistics and conservation concerns, however, the town mayor of Taiji recently requested a permit from the Japanese Fisheries Agency to capture another 10 orcas, for display in aquaria in Japan and possible export to overseas facilities.
"Orcas may have once been common around Japan but intensive hunting and more recently live captures, have made them 'rare'," said Erich Hoyt, Co-director of the Far East Russia Orca Project and a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Cetacean Specialist Group. "It would be completely irresponsible for the Japanese Fisheries Agency to grant an orca quota or allow even one removal from Japanese waters, much less a whole pod!"
WDCS's Cathy Williamson said: "Confinement in captivity is no place for these highly mobile, highly social, complex animals. The average survival time in captivity for wild-caught orcas is less than six years. And yet the high price paid by aquariums around the world continues to fuel the orca trade and threaten the lives of orcas in countries without strict legislation to protect them. WDCS is calling on the authorities in Japan not to permit any further captures of orcas in its waters."
Ten years ago, the family group of 10 orcas was corralled by Japanese fisherman using crude methods which included banging on iron rods and water bombs to disorientate the animals and force them into a bay, in what is commonly known as a 'drive hunt'. After a traumatic capture, the animals were restrained in the bay for a further two days before representatives from Japanese marine parks arrived and animals were sold off to the highest bidder. The family was split in two. Five animals which hadn't been selected by aquarium officials were released, their fate unknown. The remaining five were transported via road or sea to the aquaria that had purchased them. Of those five, three are now dead. The two remaining animals live in isolation in two separate Japanese aquaria.
Editors' notes:
The WDCS report 'Captive Orcas: Dying to Entertain You' is available at http://www.wdcs.org
Cathy Williamson is Captivity Programme Manager at WDCS.
Erich Hoyt is Senior Research fellow with WDCS and a recognized expert in the field of orca research.
[1] On 26th September 2003, a group of orcas, which included a young calf, was captured in Zhirovaya Bay, Kamchatka in Far East Russia. During the capture attempt, one juvenile female orca was killed and another young female captured alive and transported over 7,000 miles to a facility owned by the Utrish Dolphinarium on the Black Sea. At the time of capture, she was a prime, healthy and nearly-mature animal, but, less than a month after capture, on the 19th October, confined in captivity and separated from her family group, the orca died.
The main sightings of orcas in Japanese waters are in the far north off Hokkaido. A recent study there found only 25 different orcas in 7 groups during 36 pod encounters between 1990 and 2005 (Sato et al 2006).
Between 1948-1972, 1,477 orcas were hunted in Japanese waters, 545 of them around Hokkaido (Nishiwaki & Handa 1958; Ohsumi 1975)
According to a new book Whales, Whaling and Ecosystems (J. Estes, ed 2006), whaling was the suspected cause of orca decline in Japanese waters. "Killer whale encounters [in Japanese waters] are rare or uncommon."
A March 2006 workshop on killer whales in the Western North Pacific, held in Tokyo, with Japanese and worldwide killer whale experts, was unable to estimate the numbers or status of killer whales in Japanese waters.
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