Victory for animal rights after Japanese court awards Australian
activist 110,000 yen after museum refused her entry to check on captive
bottlenose
Saturday 26 March 2016 01.04 GMTLast modified on Saturday 26
March 201601.12 GMT
Animal rights activists have claimed a significant victory in its
battle to end Japan
The court in Wakayama , western Japan, on Friday awarded
110,000 yen (£690) to Sarah Lucas, head of Australia
for Dolphins, who had attempted to enter the Taiji whale museum in 2014 but
was turned away and shown a cardboard sign saying “anti-whalers” were not
welcome.
Lucas had intended to check on the welfare of a baby albino bottlenose
that had been kept at the museum since being separated from its pod and
captured earlier in the year. The museum reportedly paid $500,0000 (£354,000)
for the animal.
Lucas said the rare dolphin, called Angel, was being kept in a tiny
crowded tank full of chlorine, and was being bullied by other dolphins.
“The legal battle to save Angel is much bigger than a rescue mission
to save one albino dolphin calf,” Lucas said after the verdict.
“This win proves the Taiji whale museum, the institution at the heart
of the dolphin hunting trade, behaved illegally. It also shows the Taiji
dolphin hunts are not above the law, which means the Japanese legal system can
be used to end the cruel dolphin hunts for good.”
Tetsuo Kirihata, deputy chief of the Taiji museum, said he was
satisfied with the verdict because the initial demand for damages had been for
about 3m yen.
“We feel much of our case was taken into account by the court,” he
told Associated Press. Kirihata said the dolphin was eating well and getting
along with other dolphins, with regular blood tests showing it was healthy.
What to some might look like bullying was, in fact, “part of regular activity
in nature,” he added.
The museum is owned by the town government in Taiji, the setting for
the Oscar-winning 2009 documentary The Cove, which showed
fishermen driving pods of dolphins into shallow water before killing them with
knives.
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