really didn't want to get in the middle of the captive cetacean thing from before, but this is something i could address... (esp since cat sitting during springbreak doesn't motivate me to study at all).
The Marine Mammal Protection Act is a part of U.S. law, and I believe the events in The Cove take place in Japan. While Japan is currently a member of the International Whaling Commission (the body that governs whaling practices and which instated the current moratorium on commercial whaling), they do openly continue to harvest cetaceans. The reason Japan is able to do this within IWC guidelines is that their legitimate whaling practices are conducted through their Institute of Cetacean Research.
That, and the IWC itself even says that the wording of the convention (i.e. the protection of "whales") makes it difficult. Because some gov'ts take that to mean all cetaceans while others take it to mean only the whales listed as a guideline in the convention, where dolphins aren't listed. I guess Taiji was a whaling village before the convention went into effect. And somehow afterwards, they decided to shift their focus on dolphins after they couldn't hunt whales anymore. Tell me if this is incorrect, but my guess is that the purpose of dolphin hunting is to capture and sell some to non-US countries for entertainment (I mean, if the meat can't be consumed... and I've never heard of dolphin meat... there's gotta be an economic incentive right?)? That's a separate issue I think than the
research whaling going on (which is obviously driven by the consumption of whale meat). Now, I have no idea why anyone would ever want to bludgeon dolphins or whales or baby seals... but then I've never been to these little villages in japan or canada so I don't understand the motivation behind it either.
But I can say that there's a huge group of middle aged- to old people population in Japan who are die hard fans of whale meat. I'm pretty sure it was a marketing ploy similar to what I've heard of the Korean dog meat business that's making it thrive now. Back in WWII or so, whale meat was the disgusting meat that everyone had to eat (think: yucky school lunch that kids dreaded) because that was the only food available. Once that was over with and people started to thrive, no one needed to eat whale meat anymore... which was when it was delicacy-tized so the whaling industry wouldn't go down. Now a subset of the population is very protective of their "right" to eat it. At least that's what I've heard anyway, and it makes sense at least from the stories I hear about the yuckiness of whale meat back in the post-war era from the old people I know.
Since Japan is an island nation that's historically relied on the ocean for their food source, ocean products are heavily ingrained in their diet culturally. With the relatively large population of Japan now, their heavy consumption of ocean products in general is a huge threat to many many ecosystems around the world. So people there hear it all the time, both externally and internally, that their diet is wreaking havoc on the rest of the world (not just nature, but esp the people in 3rd world countries). A lot of people are very cognizant of that... and feel awful about it, but don't really know how to change anything. They're generally pretty conscientious people, and most people do what they can, so things like recycling and such are very advanced over there. But what to do about diet? That's something that's really hard to change. So I think there's that guilt element that makes people feel edgy about their diet in general (and you know how some people can't help getting defensive when their morals are being called into question). Sometimes it seems like they can't eat most of what they would like to eat, because it threatens spp, as commercial fishing in Japan itself is a threat. Some people don't see whale meat all that different from the commercial fishing issue in general (tuna is going to go extinct, etc...). For others, the whole whale thing just causes them to fall off the deep end. There are some people (the mid to old people who
love whale meat) who can't see past it being an accusation by foreigners on their culture. And the crazy Whale Wars people really help perpetuate that, and draws attention away from the real issue at hand (no joke).
The obvious thing is that regulations really need to be addressed and tightened. Like, the IWC needs to redefine whales to mean all cetaceans if dolphin hunting needs to be ended. And the whole research thing needs to be addressed. It's really bogus to make an internal org to "regulate" a bad deed to get out of an international agreement. My younger sister researches with captive cetaceans in Hawaii, and there's absolutely no way that IACUC would EVER allow a study involving the killing of hundreds of
any wild animal, much less threatened spp, just to study stomach content and such here. Any study like that is done on beached animals (that they will try to rescue first of course). The captive cetaceans for their research is treated like kings, and have a full time trainer/animal and a bunch of students to cater to their every need. Even that's controversial.
That being said, changing regulations is much easier said than done. There's only so much you can push in international relations. Even though Japan is a strong ally to much of the western world, there are other serious issues that always seems to come first (and rightly so). There are still many cultural clashes that always threaten relations. People in Japan generally resent the presence of US military over there, and that's a huge issue pissing a lot of people off. The US and Japan are always quarreling over food importation (Japan needs to import but wants better food safety, US wants to export but believes their food is safe enough and don't want to comply). There's enough tension from things like the above, that can really result in highly adverse outcomes... that at the end of the day, whales end up being not
important enough to warrant straining relations further (because sadly, it will big time). Very sad, but very true. I think the dolphin thing is a bit easier to change though, as it really isn't a national problem and I don't think the population at large is at all attached to the idea of killing dolphins. That's not a cultural thing that extends throughout the nation, like it is with whale meat.
