Taiji Whale Museum

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Researched and written by Hinato

Taijiwhaling historymuseumKumano coastnet whaling

Photo: KishujiRapid / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) · original

A quick walk through Taiji Whale Museum tells you less than a slow one — the details are where the history actually lives.

Taiji is a small town on the Kumano coast where organised whaling in Japan began — a system of nets and coordinated boats developed here in the seventeenth century and spread from it.

It also keeps live cetaceans in a natural inlet and adjoining pools and runs shows, and the town's dolphin drive hunt has made it the subject of sustained international criticism, including the 2009 documentary The Cove. Visitors should know that before deciding whether to go. As a historical museum it is genuinely important; the living-animal side is what the controversy concerns.

What to know before you go

When to go

Year-round

Opening hours

8:30 AM – 5:00 PM

Closed: Open every day of the year | May close temporarily in severe weather

Time to allow

90 minutes – 2 hours

Fee

¥1,800 adults | ¥900 elementary and junior high school students | Preschoolers free

Reaching the site

Access notes

Taiji, Higashimuro District. About a short walk from JR Taiji Station. Admission ¥1,800 adults and ¥900 elementary and junior high school students; preschoolers free.

Historical notes & tips

**Know what the town is before you come.** Taiji's dolphin drive hunt has drawn sustained international criticism and the museum keeps live cetaceans. That is a decision to make in advance rather than on arrival. **The historical collection is the substance.** Net-whaling technology, boats, harpoons and the religious material around the trade — it is the best archive of its kind and it explains how a coastal community organised itself around this for four hundred years. **Open every day.** Including New Year, with weather closures the only exception. **Ten minutes from the station.** Taiji is on the JR Kisei Line between Kushimoto and Nachi-Katsuura, so it fits into a coastal itinerary without a car. **Look at the town too.** The whaling memorials, the shrine and the old harbour explain as much as the museum does.

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