Year after ' Cove ' Oscar, activists SHIFT tactics (AP)

TAIJI, Japan – the fervor of Academy Awards in Hollywood on Sunday, the winners of last year will be a distant memory. Half a world away in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji, few will never forget the film, which won in 2010 for best documentary.

One year after "The Cove" has received an Oscar for his portrayal of hunting fierce tradition of Taiji Dolphin, the small town is still under siege by foreign activists. Who created an impasse with the fishermen of Taiji, bringing some activists to try a different feel.

"I'm trying to get a popular movement, going in Japan. I've come to realize, you cannot come up with a stick and tell them what to do, "said Ric o' Barry, Dolphin veteran activist who stars in" Bay ".

A smattering of protestors foreigners came to years of Taiji, but after the success of the film, was swamped the sleepy town of 3500. The environmental group Sea Shepherd has launched a "Guardian Cove" program that brings visitors, new groups like "Taiji Action Group" and "Taiji's eyes" have sprung up and many people came.

The influx has had little effect. Hunters of two dozen Dolphin of the city, most of whom are former whalers surly, ignore the demonstrators as pressure of unwanted foreigners to their traditions and responded with tarp process structures to conceal bloody aspects of their work. A rare public meeting between the two parties in November was in confusion and contention, and city officials say that attention is mostly an annoyance.

"We are a small town, you really cannot get anything else done while this is happening," said Masahiro Mukai, which normally runs voluntary fire brigade of the city, but now goes on regular patrols to monitor activists.

So the activists as o' Barry are looking to recruit more Japanese to their cause, publishing Japanese language materials and meetings with those who show an interest. Longtime activists Japanese as Masato Sakano organised a crowded forum in Tokyo to discuss the implications of "The Cove" and the Taiji hunting.

While many in the country feel that the city should be allowed its traditional ways, others are coming to Taiji to protest or just see for yourself.

"A lot of foreigners are helping us, but if you don't do something for ourselves, this issue is resolved," said Yoshiko Wada, 33, a hairdresser who visited the city six times.

The Government allows approximately 20,000 dolphins to be hunted along the coasts of Japan every year. Only about 2,000 of those taken in Taiji, but it is mainly because it uses fishing units, in which animals are herded near the shore and slaughtered in shallow water, as opposed to be arpionato in the sea.

This method lends itself also to catch animals, because they are relatively unharmed and can be examined closely by Aquarium Dolphin buyers or distributors. Those who are not collected are killed for meat or occasionally released.

In past years, several cities caught live dolphins in Japan, but now remains only Taiji. So a complete end to the hunt would be difficult, because they have become crucial to the Dolphin popular and profitable shows across the country, and captive breeding is rare.

While killing dolphins for food remains a touchstone culture, hunts generate much more money from the sale of live animals. Bottlenose dolphins sold for meat usually Go for several hundred dollars, while the first animals to sell for about $ 10,000 nationally and abroad, much more. In the year ending in March 2010, 79 dolphins were exported from Japan to 277 million yen (3.38 million), says the Government.

With the fishermen of Taiji unlikely to bow to foreign pressure and strong ties with Japan aquarium industry, a quick order to hunts appears unlikely. Some foreign activists have called for protests directly for aquariums, but others question this approach.

"If we cannot stop aquariums in our countries, as you go to the Japanese and ask them to do it here?", said Michael Dalton, an Australian activist living near Taiji.

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