About
The Dolphin Trail is a new creation title I came up with to describe the path I see blazed by our animal totem, the dolphins. Socially conscious people in the last fifty years or so have had a resurgence of interest in dolphins. First we saw shows like Flipper on television, that exposed us to the charm of dolphins interacting with humans.
My introduction to dolphins occurred when I was living in Okinawa. I was twelve years old, traveling by myself by bus on the island, and came upon a bay full of dolphins and pilot whales. Except this was not the joyful discovery that you might think. This was Nago Bay, and the dolphins were being netted and speared to death by fishermen. It was a horrific sight, seeing the bay full of blood and carnage.
My emotions and mind were overpowered by the sight I was seeing, and I felt like I went into shock. I felt emotionally blunted by witnessing this event, and had a hard time feeling things emotionally for many years. In my struggle to understand this, I read everything I could find about whales and dolphins. I discovered Dr. John Lilly’s books, which explored communication between man and dolphin. I found a copy of Joan McIntyre’s Mind in the Waters, a book that celebrates the consciousness of whales and dolphins.
I began to realize that one of the reasons I felt so impacted by witnessing the killing of the dolphins and pilot whales. These were conscious beings, with intelligence similar to ours, and with every right to exist peacefully in their water world. I began to see this injustice as interspecies warfare!
As time progressed, the world saw pictures of a similar scene at Eicke Island. Then, more recently through the eyes of the activists that brought us The Cove, the expose of the dolphin killings at Tajii Bay, Japan.
The public became aware that fisherman were killing dolphins in tuna nets, through the efforts of Earth Island Institute, EarthTrust, GreenPeace, The Dolphin Network and others. Efforts were made to educate the public that the process of fishermen “setting on dolphins”, to net the tuna was killing a huge number of dolphins.
Then, there were exciting attempts at human and dolphin communication, like Project JANUS. This project was started by Dr. John C. Lilly and the Human/Dolphin Foundation to be able to talk to the dolphins. I was a researcher on this project, and then worked to release the dolphins back to the wild.
Recently, we were reminded of dolphin deaths, though the visuals and story told in The Cove. Thanks to the efforts of Ric O’Barry and many environmentalists, dolphins are no longer being killed at Taji Cove in Japan.
The image of dolphins swimming together in pods has attracted a following of people that resonate with that sense of community. In the past, I have called it the Dolphin Community Network, then The Dolphin Network and Dolphin Net, and now I describe it as The Dolphin Trail. I am publishing The Dolphin Trail book as a series of articles on my website. I will be requesting interaction with you through comments, the forum, or personal transformative stories from you and others, which may be used in publication.
I will use this website as a container to build the creation of this series of products. I see The Dolphin Trail as a book, an app on iPad, and a film and video. Thank you in advance for your support in this endeavor.
Legal disclaimer: All rights are reserved to the ownership, name and use of The Dolphin Trail and www.dolphintrail.com Copyright © 2010 The Dolphin Trail, by Edward Ellsworth.
Dear Edward,
Please allow me to introduce myself or perhaps i should say re-introduce myself. My name is Anthony Bash. You may not remember me but in fact, i worked for a while with Dr. Lilly’s JANUS team at the Redwood City site during the years from 1983 to 1985. I was living in Half Moon Bay when i first came into contact with the Human/Dolphin Foundation and got connected as a volunteer, first as a carpenter to build some shelves in one of the trailers and then also a retaining wall behind the trailers, and next as a weekend caregiver to feed Joe and Rosy and the two smaller white-sided Pacific dolphins that were also being kept on the site. I later was accepted on the JANUS research team as a UCSC student intern and worked alongside the pool with Tom and Jenny and the other researchers. I met John and his wife on numerous occasions during my time there at the site and also when attending lectures and events that occurred during those years.
I wrote and submitted a report based on my observations and experiences to my mentor at UCSC and got college credit for my efforts. However, due to a somewhat traumatic experience for me working there at the Redwood site (one of the white-sided dolphins fell deathly ill while i was on weekend duty and died in my arms before the vet could be found) along with some very disturbing observations i made during my time onsite (seeing a show dolphin repeatedly leaping out of its pool to deliberately bang its head hard against the concrete poolsides, witnessing the deformed dorsal fins of dolphins that had been kept for years in captivity there as petting objects in the shallow petting pool of the Africa/USA Amusement park, and viewing a different research facility with four or more dolphins being kept in an unimaginably small confinement pool) i ultimately abandoned my dream of becoming a dolphin researcher and therefore eventually quit my connection with the H/D Foundation.
I went to Japan shortly after making the decision to quit dolphin research and met some very wonderful individuals there who had dedicated their lives to teaching and living a peaceful, alternative lifestyle. I was invited to become a fellow teacher at a new school that was to be opened in Shimane Prefecture and decided to do that and went there to work and live in 1987.
I won’t go into much of my story after that since it is not so important to the topic of this letter but i will just say that i found a copy of Ric OBarry’s book Behind the Dolphin’s Smile in a bookstore in SC when i went there on vacation one summer and after reading it, felt that i had made the right decision to quit the path that i had set myself on since i was nine years old and read my first book that spoke of dolphin’s, Island of the Blue Dolphins, which you must certainly know well.
I still live here in Japan and of course i’ve read all the news stories about Ric OBarry’s activities here trying to end the yearly slaughter at Tiaji Bay. I haven’t been able to see the movie yet because they won’t show it here except for in a few designated theaters in the big cities far from where i live. I’ve often thought about my close connection to dolphins and about how important they were to me in my past and about how little i seem to able to help them now even when i live here in the nexus of what is going on in the world to address their horrible suffering and deaths.
So, Edward, I’m writing this to you thinking that you may be able to find a way for me to play a role again in the big play that we all seem to be caught up in during this lifetime of ours. I can never forget the sheer joy i experienced holding onto Rosy’s back as she pulled me along in the sparkling, rainbow dappled water on those quite weekend afternoons when it was my privilege to be with her and Joe as their caregiver, and in my heart i felt, as their friend. If there is some way that i could prove to be useful to the cause of bringing about a peaceful end to the killing of the dolphins here in Japan and/or to the cause of educating others about the need of preserving dolphins in the wild and their habitats, I am willing to commit myself to it. Please consider what i have shared with you and contact me if and when it seems appropriate to you.
Sincerely,
Anthony C. Bash
Iwate Prefecture
JAPAN