Itoman Harley: Abolish the Duck Picking Competition.

Itoman Harley” is held every year on the fourth day of the fifth lunar month in Itoman City, Okinawa.
The “Duck Catching Competition” is held during the race. Ducks are thrown into a fishing harbor, and the frightened ducks are caught and brought back as prizes.

Entertainment and events that involve the suffering and pain of animals are not appropriate in this day and age of heightened awareness of animal welfare.

Petition

A petition has been set up to call for the abolition of the “Duck-Catching Competition.
Please sign the petition if you agree with it.
https://goo.gl/uQXwxe

Send Opinion

Please submit your opinion to Itoman City to abolish “Duck catching competition”!
http://www.city.itoman.lg.jp
Enter from “Opinions and Requests” on the left.

Please submit your opinion to Okinawa Prefecture to abolish “Duck catching competition”!
http://www.pref.okinawa.lg.jp/index.html
Enter from “Contact Us” at the bottom of the page.

Request for Abolition

May 14, 2015
To: Itoman Fishing Cooperative Association

We are non-profit organization engaged in promoting animal welfare in Japan. We are writing to you to express our concerns and make a request regarding the “Duck Catching Competition” held annually at the Itoman Harley event organized by your association.

We have received many comments from citizens about the duck catching competition, saying that they feel sorry for the ducks and urging us to do something to stop it. We have also received feedback from residents of Okinawa regarding this matter.

We have checked the videos of the duck catching on the Internet, and we can see that it is a big problem from the viewpoint of animal welfare. Some of the people involved have told us that some of the birds break bones during the duck catching. The use of animals for entertainment, such as bullfights, circuses, dolphin shows, dogfighting, etc., is internationally moving toward abolition. It is mentioned that the duck-catching event is conducted as a “traditional event,” but shouldn’t traditions evolve and change with the times?

From the perspective of preventing livestock diseases and zoonotic infections, we believe it is important not to unnecessarily expose livestock to human contact. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that ducks are one of the causes of avian influenza, and in South Korea, where the avian influenza outbreak is raging, 43% of the cases come from duck farms. Ducks are less likely to show symptoms of infection, and even if they look healthy when they are brought in from the farm, there is no way to determine what is actually going on.

Just recently, there have been fears of an avian influenza pandemic in Japan. Is it really necessary to continue duck catching at all risks?
Isn’t it possible that the wonderful and traditional Itoman Harley is being degraded by having a duck catching competition?
We sincerely ask you to abolish the duck catching competition.
Thank you very much in advance for your time. We look forward to your response.

June 10, 2015
We have received a response from the Itoman Harley Events Committee.
They asked that the response not be made public, so we are not publishing it on our website.
The content of the response was that they will continue the duck catching, which was not satisfactory, so we have submitted the questionnaire again.

June 12, 2015
Thank you for taking the time to reply. In light of your response, I would like to ask four questions again.

First, regarding the first “authorized handler,” is it correct to understand that a person registered as a Type 1 animal handler is in charge of keeping and managing ducks in the “duck catching competition”?
Regarding the third item, “The ducks’ habits are taken into consideration and efforts are made to ensure that the ducks’ health and safety are not compromised,” please tell us specifically what kind of consideration is given. For example, what kind of care is taken to prevent ducks from breaking their legs while picking ducks?
Regarding the fourth point, “The ducks are eaten as food at home, and even then, efforts are made to minimize any suffering during the process,” what methods are used for the final checks to verify how participants slaughter the ducks at home? Also, please tell us how you instruct the participants on how to make the process as painless as possible.
Please tell us how you take measures to prevent infectious diseases of domestic animals and zoonosis in your duck-catching competitions.

Animal welfare is a matter of national concern. We believe that before a duck catching competition takes place, the public needs to be asked about the pros and cons of entertainment at the expense of animals.
We would appreciate your response by June 17, 2011.

Also, please let us know if we may publish your association’s response of June 10 on our website. Thank you in advance for your time.

Postscript:
According to the explanation of the exhibited animals (Ministry of the Environment), this event may fall under the category of “Type 1 Animal Handling Business”, we had informed Okinawa Prefecture of the need for registration, but the prefecture decided that it does not constitute a “Type 1 Animal Handling Business”.

June 19, 2015
The duck catching competition took place.

The Okinawa Animal Welfare Center has been receiving concerns about possible animal cruelty, and they have been providing guidance to the Itoman Fisheries Cooperative Association. They say they conducted an inspection of this year’s duck-catching event to check if there were any issues.
It seems that the following improvements have been made this year:

They made a broadcast throughout the 20 minutes that the competition took place, saying, “Do not hold the feathers or heads. If you violate the rule, you must leave immediately.”
The ducks used to be tied to a string when they were taken home, but this year, the system was changed to a basket to take them home.
Request for the submission of a diagram showing the placement of supervisory personnel during the duck-catching competition in advance.

However, these improvements are based on the approval of the “duck-catching competition. It is time for us to stop using animals for entertainment and events.

April 25, 2016
Ten months have passed since we submitted our questionnaire and we have received responses to each of the four questions from the Itoman Harley Events Committee.
We have not published the responses on our website, as they have asked us not to publish them.

June 8, 2016.
The duck catching competition took place.

May 29, 2017

The duck catching competition took place.

Designated as Intangible Folk Cultural Asset

The Itoman Harley, including the Duck Catching Competition, is designated as an Intangible Folk Cultural Asset.
As this event, which involves abusive behavior, cannot be considered valuable and protectable from a modern perspective, we have asked the Itoman City Board of Education to remove the Duck-Catching Competition (Ahiratuei) from the Intangible Folk Cultural Property designation under Article 5 of the Itoman City Cultural Property Protection Ordinance.

Itoman City Ordinance for Protection of Cultural Properties, Article 5
(Cancellation)
Article 5 Cultural properties designated pursuant to the provisions of paragraph 1 of the preceding article (hereinafter referred to as “city-designated cultural properties”) Article 5 The Board of Education may cancel the designation or recognition of a cultural property designated pursuant to paragraph 1 of the preceding article (hereinafter referred to as “City-designated Cultural Property”) when the property is no longer located within the city limits, when the property loses its value as City-designated Cultural Property, when its holder is no longer deemed suitable as a holder due to physical or mental disability, or when there are other special circumstances.

However, upon confirming this with Itoman City, we were told that, as with designation, termination is also based on an application from the applicant and is subject to examination and decision by the Board of Education, and that termination cannot be considered without an application from the applicant (the Itoman Hurley Event Committee).