The late Dexter Kate is honored upon his return to Hawaii from freeing
dolphins in a drive kill in Japan
conducted a series of trips into Japan to try to bring an end to the
practice of large-scale drive-kill fisheries for dolphins. The Japanese
government had put a bounty on the heads of dolphins, which were driven
into bays, knifed to death, and ground up to be dumped as fertilizer. After
years of working with the local people, in 1980 he intervened in the middle
of a drive kill, releasing some 200 dolphins from Tatsunoshima Island nets
in the dead of night by untying them. He then turned himself in to local
authorities, who incarcerated him in Sasebo Prison for 80 days before deportation.
During this period, the world focus on Japan's drive-kills brought the issue
to a much higher profile. Dexter's ongoing work also presaged ET invesitagations
into "dolphin sold as whale", which he discovered in the early
'80's.
