Imagine dolphins swimming happily in the ocean, when suddenly they are herded into a small cove in Japan to be captured and/or slaughtered. A horrific image, yet it is happening daily nonetheless. Taiji, Japan is the world leader in supplying dolphins for entertainment purposes which includes: aquariums, petting/swimming with dolphins, SeaWorld, etc., and it also slaughters dolphins by the thousands each year. Additionally, Taiji distributes dolphin meat throughout Japan, which is extremely dangerous for humans, because of the astronomical amounts of mercury the dolphin meat contains. The slaughtering and capture of dolphins is all spurred by the dolphin entertainment industry, like Seaworld. Although the dolphins may look happy in captivity, they are actually depressed and commit suicide occasionally. Dolphins are highly intelligent and self aware, so placing them in captivity is wrong and immoral.
Every year in Taiji, from September to March, is “dolphin season.” The documentary, “The Cove” depicts what happens during that time. In remote coves along the shoreline, dolphins are herded up and trapped in the cove. The next day dolphin trainers come and choose the dolphins they want to buy, and the dolphins that are not picked are slaughtered. Not one or two are killed a day, the killing per day involves around 50-100 dolphins usually. It is a literal bloodbath, the fisherman go around stabbing the dolphins to death in a very inhumane way. The rest of Japan did not even know that this atrocity was going on until “The Cove” was produced, because Taiji’s government covered it up so well. Even after “The Cove” was shown in Japan, Taiji’s dolphin season still occurs because it is such a lucrative business. Each dolphin that is bought is worth $600,000 while the one’s that are killed either are just killed, or are sold as meat for roughly $50. So they capture all of the dolphins just for that one dolphin to sell.
The Japanese populace is well aware of what happens when people consume unsafe amounts of mercury, as a matter of fact the disease for mercury poisoning is named after a town in Japan. Minamata disease, which is caused by severe mercury poisoning, causes birth defects, paralysis, polio, ataxia and even death. Oblivious to the repercussions the fishermen do immoral things with the dolphins they kill. One thing the fisherman do is sell ground dolphin meat for fish farming. The problem with that is the toxic meat of the dolphin is passing the toxins down to a fish lower on the mercury chain. So a species that should be safe from mercury poisoning is now toxic without the Japanese consumer realizing it. Also, dolphin meat is sold to the Japanese consumer disguised as whale meat; so the Japanese are unintentionally consuming food that is hazardous to their health. The reason that much dolphin meat exists on the market is because the fishermen produce a surplus of dolphin meat after the killing.
Dolphins have evolved over millions of years, adapting perfectly to life in the ocean. They are intelligent creatures that are social and self-aware. The capture of dolphins is traumatic and sometimes results in injury or death. The number of dolphins that die in the process of being captured or as a result of capture are never released by the programs that take the dolphins. Some facilities even have the audacity to claim that they “rescued” their dolphins from the wild. This claim is false. The training of dolphins is often distorted by the dolphin industry to make it look as if dolphins perform because they like it. This isn't the case. The dolphins perform because the trainers deprive them of food. Most captive dolphins confined in tanks to small, with filtered seawater that hurts them. Dolphins in a tank are also hampered in their ability to operate their sonar because the mirrors just bounce the picture right back to them. Which is like forcing someone to live in a room full of mirrors, with their image always bouncing back to them. Dolphins, unlike humans, breathe manually, so if they want to, they stop breathing thereby committing suicide. This happens due to depression among the captive dolphins.
The continued public support of dolphanariums, swim-with-dolphin programs, etc., also supports the continued slaughter of dolphins in Taiji. To stop the slaughter, we need to stop supporting all of the dolphin entertainment venues; therefore sending a message and cutting off their funds. As a result, thousands of dolphins a year will be saved and the people of Japan won’t be exposed to the mercury ridden dolphin meat.
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