Al Gore & co. made it trendy to go green in the millennium. Back in the mid- to late-19980s, when I was growing up in a small suburb in northern New Jersey, America’s environmental concern was a little more specific. We all wanted to Save the Whales. In 1986 the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling.
For photographer and documentary film director Louie Psihoyos, that dream apparently never went away. Psihoyos’ Oscar Award-winning film, The Cove, uncovers the all-too-real tragedy of dolphin hunting. (Oceanic dolphins are part of the suborder Odontoceti, toothed whales.)
The film director more recently discovered that the Santa Monica sushi restaurant The Hump was using the meat of protected sei whales in their dishes. Whale meat is illegal in the United States and was being imported from Japan, which is still a whaling nation (along with the Scandinavian countries of Norway and Iceland and the aboriginal communities of Alaska, northern Canada, and Siberia). The meat was linked back to seafood vendor Ginichi Y. Ohira, who pled guilty for knowingly selling the whale meat for unauthorized purposes. He faces arraignment in September. As for The Hump, it closed its doors, saying:
The Hump hopes that by closing its doors, it will help bring awareness to the detrimental effect that illegal whaling has on the preservation of our ocean ecosystems and species. Closing the restaurant is a self-imposed punishment on top of the fine that will be meted out by the court. The Owner of The Hump also will be taking additional action to save endangered species.
One such action will be to make a substantial contribution to one or more responsible organizations dedicated to the preservation of whales and other endangered species.
It’s nice to know that photographer/film director Louie Psihoyos hasn’t given up the cause of saving the whales.
Psihoyos was born in Dubuque, Iowa, one of the oldest cities west of the Mississippi River. (Note to self: today publishing is one of the fastest-growing industries in Dubuque, Iowa.) He is the son of a Greek immigrant who fled the communist occupation of the Peloponnesos region of Greece during World War II.
Check back tomorrow to hear the story of a dolphin myth from the Peloponnesus!
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 