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Indoor and outdoor cats/ねえこ

2012-01-27T14:54:00.001+09:00

Dog honored for keeping man, girl warm in wrecked car | The Japan Times Online

2011-11-26T12:35:00.000+09:00

Dog honored for keeping man, girl warm in wrecked car | The Japan Times Online

Dog Death Row

2011-10-23T14:08:00.001+09:00

Dog death row... 250,000 cats and dogs gassed each year in Japan - News On Japan by mirror.co.uk on Oct 22, 2011 10:42 PM A puppy scratches at a window in a pitiful attempt to escape the horror which is about to unfold. Minutes later the pedigree Japanese Akita is among a large group of dogs led into a "dream box", execution chamber which will be pumped full of carbon dioxide. As the deadly gas slowly fills the box it takes 10 minutes for the barking inside to die down into heart-breaking whimpers. And as the dogs writhe in agony, it takes another 20 minutes before their twitching bodies are finally still. The animals have just become the latest batch of the 200,000 cats and dogs which will be gassed to death in Japan this year. The euphemistically named dream boxes where they spend their final moments are fully mechanised gas chambers housed in health centres called hokenjos. There are 108 in Japan and they each kill an average of 550 animals a day. (mirror.co.uk)

食べ盛り

2011-09-25T12:02:00.001+09:00

食べ盛り, originally uploaded by maisuke*.

Animal activists protest against Japan dolphin hunting | euronews, no comment

2011-09-15T12:08:00.000+09:00

Animal activists protest against Japan dolphin hunting | euronews, no comment

1000匹が23区に　東京でタヌキが暮らせる理由大手町のオフィス街にも登場

2011-09-15T12:02:00.001+09:00

2011/8/16 7:00
ニュースソース: 日本経済新聞　電子版

大手町のビルで捕獲されたタヌキ(2010年11月５日、東京都千代田区の警視庁丸の内署)

タヌキといえば、里山に暮らすイメージが強いが、東京23区内にも1000匹ほどが生息しているという。大手町のオフィスビルに夜間、自動ドアを開けて入ってくるなどの珍事も起きている。ライバルのキツネはもはや都心から撤退しているようだが、タヌキがしたたかに都会暮らしを続けられる理由はなんだろうか――。

東京の上野動物園。クマ舎の脇の小さな獣舎で、メスのタヌキが１匹だけ飼育されている。名前は「しのっぴ」。数年前、近くの不忍池あたりで捕獲された。飼育担当の野島大貴さんは「正確な年齢は分からないが、まだ若くて動きが活発ですよ」と話す。顔つきは、よくある置物のような丸顔ではない。鼻が少々ツンとしていて面長な感じだ。夜行性なので昼間は寝ていることが多いが、食事のほかにたまにおやつとして昆虫を与えると、昼間でも興奮して走り回っている。そのスピードはネコほどではないが意外に早い。「この子はあまり人間を恐れない。人間たちの様子をじっと観察しているようなところがありますね」と野島さんは言う。

上野動物園の獣舎で元気に走り回るタヌキのしのっぴ

この「しのっぴ」のほかにも、東京には、ひそかに人間を観察して生きているタヌキたちがいるようだ。2010年11月には夜間、大手町のＪＸビルに体長50センチほどのタヌキが１匹、地下の自動ドアから入ってきた。けがをしている様子もなかったので、捕獲後、警視庁丸の内署が都内の緑地に放している。09年には、竹橋のオフィスビルの地下駐車場に迷い込んだ子タヌキが保護され、衰弱していたのでミルクなどを与えられた。

野生のタヌキが都会に出没するのはなぜだろうか。「タヌキたちのびっくり東京生活」などの著書がある動物ジャーナリストの宮本拓海さんは「都心には案外、タヌキが暮らせる緑地が残っているんですよ」と解説する。タヌキは、昆虫やムカデ、ミミズといった地表の小動物や、カキ、ムクノキ、ギンナンといった果実を食べるが、行動範囲は結構狭く、半径数百メートルほどに収まることが多い。東京には夜に閉鎖される緑地公園などがそこそこあるが、そうしたところがあれば暮らしていける。さらに東京には天敵の野良犬がほとんどいないのが好都合なのだという。

都内に暮らしているタヌキの子ども(左)とお父さん(宮本拓海さん提供)

タヌキは春に巣穴で子どもを産み、夫婦で仲良く子育てする。子どもたちは晩秋に独立していく。里山ではほかの動物が掘った穴を巣穴として利用しているが、東京では、線路脇などの側溝や寺社の床下などを使っているという。昼間は巣穴で寝ており、夕方以降、人のいなくなった緑地公園や寺社などで活動し始める。警戒心が強いので、人の近くに来ることは少ない。万一遭遇しても、太ったネコと勘違いして、見過ごされることが多いという。

宮本さんは1998年に世田谷区でタヌキを目撃してから、その生態に興味を持ち、調査を続けてきた。2006年ごろからは専用サイトの「東京タヌキ探検隊！」（http://tokyotanuki.jp/）などで広く目撃情報を募っている。これまでに収集した1600件を超える目撃情報をもとに、東京にはタヌキがおよそ1000匹いるという試算を出している。主な生息範囲と思われるのは次の８グループだ。

（１）荒川南岸グループ＝荒川河川敷から南は東武東上線を越えたあたりまで

（２）西武線グループ＝西武新宿線・池袋線の沿線

（３）京王線グループ＝京王線と井の頭線の沿線

（４）多摩川グループ＝多摩川とその支流一帯

（５）目白文京グループ＝山手通り以東で文京区全域、台東区、北区の一部も含む

（６）御所グループ＝皇居、赤坂御用地、新宿御苑、明治神宮とその周辺

（７）水元グループ＝葛飾区の水元公園周辺

（８）白金グループ＝白金にある国立科学博物館付属自然教育園の周辺

東京のタヌキを調査している宮本拓海さん

この生息範囲を見ると、緑地の多い地域のほかに、鉄道の沿線が含まれているのが興味深い。「タヌキにとって線路は暮らしやすい場所なんです」と宮本さんは言う。高架された路線は別として、地上の線路脇にはたいてい側溝があり、雑草が生えていて昆虫もいる。深夜、電車が来なくなってからはタヌキの天国。西武線や京王線などは線路沿いに伝っていけば、車の多い大通りも突破できる。

タヌキがこうして生き延びているのに、キツネがいなくなったのはなぜだろうか。明治初期には銀座あたりでもキツネが見かけられたという。彼らはタヌキより頭脳派のイメージがあり、都会のサバイバル競争に向いていそうだが、残念なことに、タヌキより少しだけ肉食系だったことが災いしたようだ。タヌキが果実や昆虫などを食べるのに対して、キツネはネズミなどの小動物を好む。その食生活を支えるためには、より広大な緑地が必要だった。英国の都市などでは今でもキツネを見かけるところもあるが、東京の緑地では、タヌキは養えても、キツネまでは養えなかったようだ。

宮本さんは「タヌキもたらふく食べているわけではなく、東京でこれから急激に増えるようなことはない」と話す。そうしてひっそりと暮らすタヌキたちと万一、幸運にも出くわすことがあったら、どう接したらいいだろうか。いちばん避けたいのは、大騒ぎして追いかけ回すこと。野生動物とは一定の距離を保ち、見守るのが望ましい。「近づかない、騒がない、食べ物を与えない」。宮本さんは、この３原則を提案している。

（生活情報部　平田浩司）

Giant Salamanders

2011-08-05T18:04:00.000+09:00

Dog in Japan stays by the side of its ailing friend in the rubble

2011-03-17T14:33:00.000+09:00

Kai Ken Puppy Akari

2011-03-11T23:30:00.000+09:00

Japanese Giant Salamander - Discovery News - Video

2011-03-01T11:28:00.000+09:00

Peach the Chihuahua: Japan's newest police dog

2010-11-24T02:36:00.001+09:00

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) – Meet Japan's newest police dog -- all 3 kg (6.6 lb) of her.

In what is a first for Japan and perhaps the world, a long-haired Chihuahua named "Momo" -- "Peach" -- passed exams to become a police dog in the western Japanese prefecture of Nara.

The brown-and-white, perky Momo was one of 32 successful candidates out of 70 dogs, passing a search and rescue test by finding a person in five minutes after merely sniffing their cap.

"Any breed of dog can be entered to become a police dog in the search and rescue division," said a Nara police spokesman.

But he admitted that news a Chihuahua had been entered may still come as a surprise to many.

"It's quite unusual," he said.

Television footage showed the 7-year-old Momo bounding across grass or sitting proudly, long hair blowing in the breeze.

Momo will be used for rescue operations in case of disasters such as earthquakes, in the hope that she may be able to squeeze her tiny frame into places too narrow for more usual rescue dogs, which tend to be German Shepherds.

The public response to the news of Momo's selection took police by surprise, the spokesman said, adding: "The phone's been ringing all afternoon."

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; editing by Paul Casciato)

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Japan's mighty whale mountain | The Japan Times Online

2010-09-16T23:04:00.001+09:00

Will killing whales make a comeback? Japan wants to hunt them. Mexico wants to save them. But for the world's largest mammals, the biggest problem is the ... about.(Briefings): An article from: OnEarth Japan's mighty whale mountain The Japan Times Online

Japan convicts Greenpeace's 'Tokyo Two' for whaling investigation

2010-09-16T03:51:00.001+09:00

Tokyo – A Greenpeace effort to expose what it sees as widespread corruption in Japan's government-subsidized whaling industry ended on Monday with two of its activists convicted of theft and trespassing.

Greenpeace activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki -- dubbed the "Tokyo Two" by their organization -- received suspended sentences for taking a package from a delivery company in April 2008 that was filled with prime whale meat and addressed to the home of a crewmember on one of Japan's research whaling vessels.

The pair, acting on a tip from a former whaler that crews were privately taking and selling whale meat that rightfully belongs to the government, delivered the package along with an explanation of their investigation to the Tokyo Prosecutors`Office the following month. But rather than resulting in government action on the alleged practice, the two were soon arrested and charged.

This is the second recent case in which prosecutors have taken action against opponents of Japan's whaling industry. In July New Zealander Peter Bethune was handed a two-year suspended sentence for illegally boarding a Japanse whaling vessel in the Southern Ocean as part of an effort to disrupt whaling by Sea Shepherds activists.

The verdict was â€œa partial vindication, because the two activists are not going to prison,â€

A brief investigation into embezzlement in Japan’s “scientific whaling” industry was dropped in June 2008 and the pair arrested following dramatic raids involving dozens of policemen and in front of the media, who had been tipped-off by the police.

The trial began in February this year, despite protests from the defense team that there was no case to answer as the investigation had been in the public interest and there had been no intention to profit from taking the meat.

With the conviction rate in Japanese criminal trials still running at over 99 percent, despite the introduction last year of a jury-like lay judge system, the chances for the activists were never good.

The court acknowledged that there had been â€œdubious practicesâ€

“The activists’ actions were clearly not criminal in nature, and they acted solely in the public interest to expose theft of Japanese taxpayers’ money,” said Naidoo, who called on the government to open an inquiry into corruption in its subsidized whaling industry.

"While the court acknowledged that there were questionable practices in the whaling industry, it did not recognize the right to expose these, as is guaranteed under international law,” said defendant Sato. “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on which our defense was based, supercedes domestic criminal law, but the judgment did not properly take this into account."

The prosecution had sought terms of 18 months for the accused. Instead they received 12-month suspended sentences. But according to Sato the verdict sends a message that “if you do something like this, you can be imprisoned.”

Greenpeace says it will appeal the verdict.

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Critics skewer Lady Gaga's meat dress

2010-09-16T03:11:00.001+09:00

NEW YORK (AFP) – Animal rights activists stuck a fork in Lady Gaga's meat dress Tuesday but supporters rallied around the bizarre singer, saying her outfit was absolutely sizzling.

The professional provocateur upstaged the MTV music video awards late Sunday not just by walking away with eight prizes, but taking that walk in enormous shoes and a nifty dress made entirely of raw steak.

Now Lady Gaga, whose "Bad Romance" hit swept the awards, stands accused of bad taste.

"Lady Gaga has a hard time being 'over the top,'" said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "Someone should whisper in her ear that there are more people upset by butchery than impressed by it."

"Meat is the decomposing flesh of an abused animal who didn't want to die, and after time spent under the TV lights, it would smell like the rotting flesh that it is and likely be crawling in maggots."

The singer is known for her theatrical sartorial taste so it was no surprise when she shuffled awkwardly across the MTV stage in Los Angeles in what appeared to television viewers to be simply an uncomfortable and oversized pair of boots bound in string.

The only reference Lady Gaga made to what she was wearing was a mysterious comment while collecting her Video of the Year gong about handing her "meat purse" to '80s icon Cher.

The purse, it turned out, really was a big chunk of meat -- cheap cuts and trimmings, not sirloin, according to butchers. And so was her hat.

Lady Gaga explained later that the fleshy look -- which she repeats with a meat swimming suit on the October cover of Vogue Hommes in Japan -- "has many interpretations."

The most common theory is that her steak-powered statement referenced her support for gays in the US military and opposition to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in the ranks.

"Well, it is certainly no disrespect to anyone that is vegan or vegetarian," she told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who is a vegan.

"If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And I am not a piece of meat."

Whatever it meant, the stunt ensured Lady Gaga's continued notoriety -- and a long menu of meaty jokes.

"She's Lady Tartare in this moo-moo!" screamed the New York Daily News. "Gaga in all her 'gory'" punned the rival New York Post.

And far from everyone felt disgusted.

Designer Franc Fernandez proudly posted pictures of the project on his website, http://francfernandez.blogspot.com, and fans congratulated him on his workmanship.

"You are a cut above the rest," one wrote on the blog.

Cher, who certainly got close enough to know whether there were really maggots, also applauded the skirt steak.

"The way it was cut and fitted to her body was AMAZING! Meat purse was genius! As Art piece it was astonishing! No moral Judgment!" tweeted the singer.

Rich Hanley, professor of communications at Quinnipiac University, said Lady Gaga showed perfect media savvy in how she unveiled her stunt -- showing up in the attention-grabbing outfit, but not talking about it.

"If she'd said 'look at me, I'm wearing meat,' it would have destroyed any build up in the eco system of the web," Hanley said. "You just let Facebook and Twitter do the heavy lifting for you."

"It shows how high the bar is -- or how low the bar is -- in this media environment," he said.

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Obama urged to help end Japan's dolphin hunt

2010-09-16T03:02:00.001+09:00

TOKYO (AFP) – Animal rights activists protested against Japan's dolphin hunts in a rally outside the US embassy in Tokyo Thursday, calling on President Barack Obama to pressure the country over the issue.

Ric O'Barry, star of the Oscar-winning eco-documentary "The Cove", handed a petition with 1.7 million signatures from more than 150 countries to US embassy officials, a day after the dolphin season started in the town of Taiji.

"We have come to ask President Obama to get involved in this issue and ask the Japanese government to abolish this annual, anachronistic, brutal slaughter of dolphins," said O'Barry, who trained dolphins for the TV show "Flipper".

The US president is expected to visit Japan in November for an annual summit of Asia-Pacific leaders.

Some 70 volunteers from countries including the United States, Canada and Australia have gathered in Tokyo to join O'Barry, and 40 of them accompanied him up to the police security perimeter around the US embassy.

O'Barry said the group had called off plans to visit Taiji, in southwestern Japan, after receiving threats of violence from right-wing nationalist groups that defend the country's right to hunt dolphins and whales.

"Police have warned me that, if I went, there would be violence," he said. "We don't want to provoke violence."

Every year, fishermen in Taiji herd about 2,000 dolphins into a shallow bay, select several dozen for sale to aquariums and marine parks and harpoon the rest for meat.

Japanese media said fishermen in Taiji had trapped some 20 bottlenose dolphins in the secluded cove on Thursday, the first

catch of the season, but a local fisherman declined to confirm the reports.

"We don't want to be reported on by foreign media," he said. "This is what we do for a living. We are worn out because of the row over 'The Cove'."

The crew that shot the film over several years often worked secretly and at night to elude authorities and angry fishermen, setting up disguised cameras underwater and in forested hills around the rocky cove.

"The Cove", directed by Louie Psihoyos, won the Academy Award for best documentary this year. A follow-up television series called "Blood Dolphins" is airing on the Animal Planet channel.

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Panda in Japan zoo dies during breeding programme

2010-09-15T03:44:00.001+09:00

Panda in Japan zoo dies during breeding programme

TOKYO (AFP) – A male giant panda in a Japanese zoo died after it was sedated so it could donate semen in an artificial insemination programme, a zoo official said Friday.

Kou Kou, or Xing Xing in Chinese, died Thursday of cardiac arrest after failing to recover from an anaesthetic at the Oji Zoo in the western port city of Kobe.

Veterinarians had sedated the 14-year-old animal as part of a programme to impregnate his partner Tan Tan, or Shuang Shuang in Chinese, also 14.

The zoo has set up a site for floral tributes and a message board.

Giant pandas, a highly endangered species native to parts of China, are notoriously slow at reproducing in captivity.

The Kobe zoo, after trying in vain to naturally mate the pair from 2003 to 2006, then began trying artificial insemination.

Tan Tan became pregnant in 2007 but the cub was stillborn. She had a live birth the following August, but the cub died three days later.

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Pick The Better Investment: A Home Or Your Mattress

2010-09-14T03:02:00.001+09:00

Pick The Better Investment: A Home Or Your Mattress
by NPR Staff

- September 11, 2010

"You need to invest in your future." "A home is a great investment." "It might be painful for a while, but it's worth it."

These are the refrains Dawn Crowell of St. Paul, Minn., heard over and over again from just about everyone.

The single mother of four eventually bought a house with the assumption that it would only increase in value. But like millions of Americans, Crowell has seen the value of her house plummet.

Over the past four years, Americans have lost more than $5 trillion in wealth tied up in their homes. Economists hold vastly different views on whether there are worse days to come, and whether the home was ever meant to be a nest egg.

The 40-Year Bubble

Market-watcher Barry Ritholtz tells NPR's Guy Raz that based on his estimates, homes are still overvalued by about 10 to 20 percent, and that means prices can go down even further.

For him, there is no such thing as a foolproof investment, and the conditions that created the rising home values of the last 20 to 40 years were rare.

"If you look at the factors that were driving home prices from 1970 to 2000, they don't exist going forward," he says.

Ritholtz attributes the housing bubble to both the availability of credit and the baby boom generation. He says in the '80s and '90s that generation was at prime home-buying age, and now, that demographic bulge no longer exists.

Plus, he says, there’s the impact of mortgage rates, now at record lows just above 4 percent.

"They're likely over the next 10 to 20 [years] to go higher and that creates a headwind to potential real estate appreciation," he says.

Long-Term Investment

But according to professor Karl Case, one half of the Case-Shiller index, there's some good news as well.

The Case-Shiller index is one of the best measures of home values, and the latest numbers show that homes are now worth about the same as they were in 2003.

Case says the housing market seems to have bottomed out, and in some places, prices are coming back up.

The cost of California homes -- which account for a quarter of the market -- have gone up dramatically. Not long ago, San Francisco had hit bottom; Case says that market is now up by 21 percent.

"Eventually when prices get down low enough, people are going to buy this property," he says. "They're going to buy it up, they're going to live in it, and by all historical standards, they're getting a pretty good bargain right now."

According to Case, prices are the best they've been in five years -- and perhaps in his lifetime. He says the idea of a house having ever-increasing value never existed, but a house can still be a good long-term investment.

"If you don't think of housing just as something to earn you capital gains in the long run, but something you're going to live in, and you can afford to pay the payments on it," he says, "it looks to be a pretty good deal." [Copyright 2010 National Public Radio]

To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews

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Photo: Horses of Cape Shiriya in Aomori | Horses of Cape Shiriya album | McAlpine | Fotki.com, photo and video sharing made easy.

2010-09-09T01:27:00.001+09:00

Photo: Horses of Cape Shiriya in Aomori Horses of Cape Shiriya album McAlpine Fotki.com, photo and video sharing made easy.

Japan Offers $2,400 Bounty for Capture of Monkey Terrorizing Resort Town

2010-09-08T23:13:00.001+09:00

By Kazuyo Sawa - Sep 8, 2010

A Japanese town is offering a 200,000 yen ($2,400) reward for the capture of a monkey that’s broken into houses and attacked 43 people in the past month.

A single male macaque, aged about 5 years, is believed to be responsible for the attacks, said Masayuki Miyazaki, a spokesman for the Mishima city government. The bounty will be introduced today and given to anyone able to lock the monkey in their house, he said.

“Many people are afraid to go outside,” Miyazaki said by telephone today. “We’ve had isolated cases of crop damage by monkeys before, but there’s never been anything like this.”

The monkey is also believed to be responsible for 38 attacks in three nearby towns, he said. The only reported injuries have been minor scratches and bites. Mishima, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Tokyo, updates a website every day to provide residents with information about the attacks.

At least eight people were lightly bitten in the town yesterday and there were 15 reported monkey sightings, according to the website.

About 10,000 Japanese macaques, also known as Snow Monkeys, are caught nationwide each year to prevent damage to crops, according to the Ministry of Environment.

More than 200 Mishima government workers, some armed with tranquilizer guns, this morning searched the town for the monkey, Miyazaki said. There were no sightings of the primate.

Parents have been advised to walk their children to school, and the city has increased police patrols. Residents should be particularly watchful in the morning when monkeys are likely to be more active, Mishima’s website says.

“The monkey is probably just seeking attention and wanting to play, but people need to be careful,” Miyazaki said. “They should run if they see the monkey.”

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Dolphins herded in Japanese cove but none killed

2010-09-04T02:11:00.004+09:00

AP – Fishermen drive bottle-nose dolphins into a net during their annual hunt off Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture …

By YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press Writer Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press Writer – Fri Sep 3, 6:00 am ET

TOKYO – Japanese fishermen herded dolphins into a cove made famous by an Oscar-winning documentary about the hunt but did not kill any Friday, as conservationist groups ramped up scrutiny of the annual slaughter.
An official in the seaside village of Taiji, depicted in the film "The Cove," said a handful of the best-looking dolphins were kept to be sold to aquariums, but the rest were set free Friday morning. He declined to give details.
The decision to set most of the dolphins free marks a departure from past practice.
Conservationist group Sea Shepherd said it has been monitoring Taiji with a small crew of activists this week, and urged people to come to the village to help save the dolphins.
Dolphins swim in pods in the ocean. Taiji fishermen herd them by scaring them with noise into the cove, save some for aquariums and kill the rest, piercing them repeatedly until the waters turn red with blood.
It was not clear where the activists had stationed themselves Friday, but it was unlikely they would be able to see any slaughter since the cove is hidden from the village itself. But they would likely be able to watch the fishermen return to the village with their catch.
The shocking depiction of the slaughter in "The Cove" has launched calls for the hunt to be stopped. The film, which stars Ric O'Barry, won this year's Academy Award for best documentary.
On Thursday, a day after the annual hunt began in Taiji, O'Barry, 70, took a petition calling for its end with 1.7 million signatures from 155 nations to the U.S. Embassy.
O'Barry, the former dolphin trainer for the 1960s "Flipper" TV show and a longtime dolphin activist, has received threats from a violent nationalist group and skipped going to Taiji this year, a trip he normally makes to protest the hunt. He said he had been advised by Japanese authorities not to go.
Taiji residents say the criticism the town has received from the West is unfair because residents are merely trying to make a living in an area where a rocky landscape would make farming and livestock-raising difficult.
Nationalist groups say criticism of dolphin hunting is a denigration of Japanese culture.
The Japanese government allows a hunt of about 20,000 dolphins a year, and argues that killing them — and whales — is no different from raising cows or pigs for slaughter. Most Japanese have never eaten dolphin meat and, even in Taiji, it is not consumed regularly.
The government is also critical of Sea Shepherd, which has harassed Japanese whaling ships. In July, a Tokyo court convicted New Zealander Peter Bethune, a former Sea Shepherd activist, of obstructing a Japanese whaling mission in the Antarctic Ocean, assault, trespassing and other charges. He was deported.
"I'm not losing hope. Our voice is being heard in Taiji," said O'Barry, who has campaigned for four decades to save dolphins not only from slaughter but also from captivity.
__
Online:
"The Cove": http://www.thecovemovie.com/

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Japan man drives wrong way on highway due to dead cat

2010-09-04T02:11:00.001+09:00

Motorists are caught in a traffic jam along a highway in Tokyo. A Japanese man drove the wrong way down …

– Fri Sep 3, 6:03 am ET

TOKYO (AFP) – A Japanese man drove the wrong way down an expressway for 90 kilometres (55 miles) and broke through five police barricades because his cat had died, he told police.

Tsutomu Mizumoto, 31, was arrested early Wednesday on the northern island of Hokkaido, the Mainichi daily reported.

Police said they responded to an emergency call about 5:45 a.m. about a car driving the wrong way on a motorway near the city of Otaru. They spotted the vehicle 15 minutes later and pursued the driver, ordering him to stop.

Mizumoto ignored them and drove on, smashing through five emergency blockades and passing through a tollgate. He finally stopped at about 7:15 a.m. when police detained him.

"I was sad that my pet cat died," he was quoted as telling police. "I wanted to do something crazy."

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Unfazed by `The Cove' Taiji's Fishermen Prepare to Resume Dolphin Hunt

2010-08-28T06:25:00.004+09:00

Visitors look at dolphins in a pool at the Taiji Whale Museum in Taiji Town, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. Photographer: Yuzuru Yoshikawa/Bloomberg

A flower is put on a barricade in front of a road leading into the cove for practices "oikomi.", a method of hunting in which dolphins are herded into a bay for slaughter, in Taiji Town, Wakayama Prefecture. Photographer: Yuzuru Yoshikawa/Bloomberg

Kazutaka Sangen, mayor of Taiji, speaks during an interview in Taiji Town, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. Photographer: Masatsugu Horie/Bloomberg

A diver swims with dolphins in this undated film still from "The Cove." Source: Sundance Film Festival via Bloomberg

Fishermen in Taiji, whose annual dolphin slaughter was depicted in the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” say they will resume the hunt next week because the 400-year-old tradition is the foundation of their industry.
“We have no intention to stop hunting dolphins,” Miyato Sugimori, administrative chief of the Taiji Town Fisheries Association, said in an Aug. 25 interview. “Our young fishermen can’t continue to live in this town without the hunt.”
Of Japan’s annual quota of 20,000 dolphins, about 1,500 are killed or sold to aquariums by fishermen in the town in Wakayama prefecture, south of Osaka. Taiji’s practice of “oikomi,” a method of hunting in which dolphins are herded into a bay for slaughter, drew worldwide criticism after the documentary was released.
“It’s a horrific way to kill them,” said Sakae Hemmi, a spokeswoman for Elsa Nature Conservancy, a Japanese environmental protection group. “Even if they let them go, the structure of the dolphins’ group is disrupted.”
According to the Japan Fisheries Agency, Taiji is the only place in Japan that practices “oikomi.” After herding the dolphins into the bay, the fishermen impale them with harpoons.
Driving a spear into the dolphin’s brain can kill the mammal in as little as two seconds and is the most humane way to conduct the slaughter, said Sugimori, who is seen in “The Cove” observing the filmmakers. Sugimori, 59, said the hunt is needed to make the local fishing industry viable.
“If we relied solely on other forms of fishing, our annual income would be about 2 million yen ($24,000), which is not enough to live on,” said Sugimori. About 6 percent of the town’s population is involved in fisheries, he said.
Cows, Kangaroos
Japan exported 56 live dolphins to countries including China, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey in 2008, receiving an average of 5.2 million yen per dolphin, according to Elsa Nature Conservancy, which cited Ministry of Finance statistics. Dolphin meat sells for about 1,000 yen a kilogram in Taiji, Sugimori said. The lowest grade of tuna sold in a local supermarket costs three times as much.
“Westerners eat cows, Australians eat kangaroos,” Sugimori said. “Japan, including Taiji, is surrounded by ocean, so we eat things from the sea which include fish, whales and dolphins. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Sugimori said if dolphin hunting was banned, young people may choose office jobs that pay more rather than join his association, which has an average age of 68. The association filed for bankruptcy and was restructured in February 2007, according to Tokyo Shoko Research.
‘Mental Capacity’
Alex Sarkissian, 17, a Canadian student who was visiting the Taiji Whale Museum, said he didn’t know dolphin hunting was a Japanese tradition.
“I like dolphins, and I don’t see why they would slaughter them,” he said. “I can’t compare dolphins and cows. They’re not on the same level of mental capacity.”
The cove depicted in the documentary can be reached by swimming for 10 minutes from Kujirahama, or “whale beach.” Surrounded by walls of rocks and trees, the 20-meter shoreline is littered with empty drink bottles and fishing rope. A security camera stands guard atop a metal pole.
Taiji’s mayor, Kazutaka Sangen, said dolphins remain an important resource for the town of 3,500 people. The “oikomi” hunt lasts from September to February.
“There are no other industries here. We can’t harvest rice or vegetables and there’s very little fresh water,” said Sangen, 62. “If we couldn’t hunt dolphins and whales, this town would have died out a long time ago.”
‘Staged Scenes’
Sangen said he gives a “zero” to “The Cove” because it wasn’t factual. He said the filmmakers staged certain scenes and deliberately provoked confrontations with fishermen to create entertaining footage.
Asked about the filming, Louie Psihoyos, the documentary’s director, said no parts of “The Cove” were staged.
“We spent two days of negotiations with the mayor’s office in order to get their side of the story,” Psihoyos wrote today in an email. “They decided not to cooperate because they feared any exposure of what was going on would compromise their business.”
“The Cove” began limited release in Japan in July and had lower-than-expected box office sales, according to Takeshi Kato, president of Unplugged Inc., the Japanese distributor.
Atsushi Matsumura, manager of the Seventh Art Theater, a cinema in Osaka that screened the film for six weeks, said about 5,000 people came to see it.
“As a documentary, I thought it was second rate,” said Matsumura. The cinema received protest letters and phone calls prior to screening the film, he said.
“We screened ‘The Cove’ because we wanted audiences to watch it and decide for themselves.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Le in Osaka at ale14@bloomberg.net; Masatsugu Horie in Osaka at mhorie3@bloomberg.net

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"The only limits are, as always, those of vision."

2010-08-25T23:23:00.001+09:00

— James Broughton

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Cool Photo Blog From Japan

2010-08-24T15:55:00.000+09:00

http://www.henrystradford.com/

Men chase nine-meter mechanized whale

2010-08-24T01:16:00.001+09:00

In this photo taken on Aug. 14, 2010, men on a rowboat chase a nine-meter (30-foot) mechanized whale during the annual whaling festival in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture in western Japan in a re-creation of the old whale hunts, when hundreds of men in dozens of boats would set out with knives and harpoons. The ancient village has a long and complex relationship with the dolphin. In early September, the waters of this same cove will turn blood red, as it becomes a holding pen for the annual dolphin hunts.

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Japan's #1 Animal Blog - Japanese Animals, Fish魚 , Birds, Reptiles, Insects and Wildlife

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Japan Offers $2,400 Bounty for Capture of Monkey Terrorizing Resort Town

By Kazuyo Sawa - Sep 8, 2010

Dolphins herded in Japanese cove but none killed

AP – Fishermen drive bottle-nose dolphins into a net during their annual hunt off Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture …

Japan man drives wrong way on highway due to dead cat

Motorists are caught in a traffic jam along a highway in Tokyo. A Japanese man drove the wrong way down …

Unfazed by `The Cove' Taiji's Fishermen Prepare to Resume Dolphin Hunt

"The only limits are, as always, those of vision."

Cool Photo Blog From Japan

Men chase nine-meter mechanized whale

1000匹が23区に　東京でタヌキが暮らせる理由大手町のオフィス街にも登場