Want to see dolphins up close? You won’t, after this…
This is going to be short and to the point (for me, anyway): I saw a heartbreaking documentary this weekend, called “The Cove”. It is about a Japanese village called Taiji that carries out an incredibly cruel annual dolphin roundup, sale and slaughter (which is going on NOW– it starts September 1st, though they started about a week late this year, due to all the media attention from the film). You need to see this film: here is the trailer…
The “dolphin fishermen” use a method of acoustical torture to drive the dolphins into a cove: a fleet of boats line up and lowers metal rods into the water, which the fisherman bang on to create a wall of sound that causes the dolphins incredible pain and even permanent auditory damage (they have incredibly sensitive hearing, so they can detect their own echolocation sounds).
As the animals flee from the source of the sound (and pain), they are driven by the “sound wall” into a cove, from which they will never return to the sea again. Once the dolphins are driven in close enough to the shore, nets are deployed to keep them captive.
In the first “round”, buyers for the world’s seaquariums and marine animal parks (they are ALL involved, directly or indirectly) choose the most “promising dolphins” and pay about $150,ooo for each of them. Though they will never be free or see their families (called a pod) again, these are the lucky dolphins.
The rest of them will be slaughtered…. over 20,000 of them each season.
You cannot appreciate the horror of this process unless you see “The Cove” (or related video) for yourself. The animals are held in the main net, until it is their turn to be driven around the next bend into the “killing cove”, where fishermen stab them to death using spear-poles. Individuals animals may be stabbed many, many times before they finally die. The water turns so red, it looks like pure blood. It is unfathomably awful and heart-rending to watch.
And then, you have to think about this from the dolphins’ perspective. As a neuroscience grad student (way back when…), I saw a dolphin brain and a human brain, side by side. There is NO question that dolphins are as intelligent, and possibly more so, than humans.
But, just assume for now that dolphins = humans, in terms of intelligence and family bonding. Imagine yourself and your family in this situation: you would be separated in the panic, but maybe you could hear your loved ones– your children!– crying out in distress, but you wouldn’t be able to do anything, except maybe call back to them. You would smell the blood in the water, and KNOW that your life and the lives of your family were in danger, but you would be powerless. Just let your mind work on the details of the horror of this for a while…
So, how do WE stop this? There is no us and them, anymore. Yes, it is the Japanese fishermen in Taiji who are carrying out this brutal atrocity RIGHT NOW, if you are reading this in September. But, why do they do it?
MONEY. Dolphins = dollars (yes, I know, yen…).
The sale of dolphins for dolphin shows and swim-with-the-dolphins businesses around the world funds dolphin slaughter. So, STOP GOING TO DOLPHIN SHOWS! Stop going to ANY PLACE that has dolphin shows! Do NOT swim with captive dolphins! Do NOT pay to see captive dolphins. If you do, YOU are supporting the Taiji dolphin slaughter… and others like it.
