The Cove - A documentary about the Slaughter of Dolphins.

LouBelle

I watched a very disturbing doccie yesturday. In Japan, come September, dolphin season opens. 23 000 dolphins are hearded into a trap. Bottle Nose dolphins are sold to Sea World / Aquariums around the world. Those that aren't sold are pulled by boats to The Cove - here a mass slaughter takes place and the sea runs a thick bright red! This dolphine meat is then sold to the japanese public under whale meat. This meat contains mercury which as you know is toxic.

Ric O'Barry who spent 10 years training 4 dolphins for the series Flipper had a change of heart when Cathy (1 of the 4) chose to die in his arms (dolphins can control their breathing, they choose to breath through the blowhole - she chose not to take another breath) Anyway he has spent the last 35 years trying to bring to the fore that dolphins belong in their natural habitat.

The documentary was heart wrenching!

Yes we all love to be close to these magical mamals, yet by capturing them and keeping them in small pools, just so they can entertain us and our children is just not cool. It would be so more wonderful to see them in their natural environment frolicking or speeding along at 40mph.

Check out: www.takepart.com/thecove or savejapandolphins.org (sorry don't know how to make clickable)

It moved me so much that I won't be going to any dolphin shows. It just doesn't sit well with me. I felt the same way about the elephants and animals in a circus that frequents these parts and demonstrated against the use of animals in circuses.

I just wanted to share this story.

LouBelle

is this old news? too far away to care? as long as it's not happening in your part of the world? boring?

i wonder is it because we are comfortable with animals/mamals in captivity? it's easier not to think about the conditions of these mamals?

i do hope some of you do check out the cove!

ziddina

I've seen such slaughters...

The inhumanity of humanity towards their fellow animals sickens me like nothing else.

HintOfLime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEUcQtPwZ0U

If only the Japanese were normal like us.

Of course, seriously - there is an intellectual scale we humans can use here. Cows and chickens... not much going on in there. Dolphins, octopus, dogs, and crows.. kind of smart.

Oh... and Pigs. Aka... "bacon" "pork' "sausage" and "ham".

Before we judge what Japan is doing.... perhaps we should consider our own favorite foods?

(Personally,... as smart as those creatures may be... smart doesn't automatically mean exemption from the "food chain". Lions certainly don't give a damn how smart you are if jump into the lion cage at the zoo.)

- Lime

HintOfLime

Really - it is purely through human mercy that some species exist. If we were any other critter.. many species would be rightfully hunted to extinction by now.

It's only because we are just smart enough to understand "if we win at everything, every time - we'll have no food left" that many creatures now exist. If we were any other species - they would be long gone by now. I take pride at even the most meger attempts by our kind to preserve life. It is way, wayyyy beyond anything else life has produced on this planet.

This is our pride.

Show some respect to our ability to grasp reality and our obligation. Sure - some people are more desperate or at a different level of personal growth.

We are the only species on this planet capable of comprehending this stuff.

- Lime

FlyingHighNow

Lou, have you done research into the other side of things? I haven't seen your documentary, nor have I looked into the side of Sea World and such places. I hope that this documentary is being fair and not sensationalistic. I guess I'm saying that it may be painting all dolphin captivity with the same broad brush as the Japanese slaughter. The Flipper trainer has one kind of experience with dolphins, but is his experience the same as Sea World or scientists who study dolphins? I don't know the answer to those questions. For me: I'd have to know more before I made a decision that all instances of dolphin captivity are bad.

Nambo

Is this the documentary where you see still live Dolpins being dragged behind lorries screaming in pain and fear whilst thier flesh is scraped from thier bodies along the road, being hacked to pieces whilst still alive, and with Japanese school children walking past the spectacle totally unmoved by the horrors and screaming sentient beings?

If so, I saw it a few years ago and subsequently wrote to the Japanese Prime Minister telling him what I thought of a country that would allow such atrocieties, whilst I never got a reply, maybe its best if I remember to avoid going to Japan for a holiday or something as I was quite rude. (actually I was very rude).

Witness My Fury

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/cove/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eknshN_uhM

I saw it on TV about 2 years ago (UK), Not nice, but a trip to the market in many lands reveals ongoing and appalling cruelty...

I think watching a live cat (on TV again) being coshed on the head (to try and stun it, but fail) and then drowned in boiling water and quickly peeled of its skin while still twitching ready to be chopped up was quite possibly the worst thing I have seen being the cat lover that I am.

Satanus

For starters, there is the cruelty. Then, there is the ongoing stripping of the oceans of life. This is needless. The japanese can start growing their own seafood w the aquaculture method. That is the equivalent of what we do w our meat production industries. Further, in our meat industries, much effort has been put into making the slaughter as humane as possible. This concept has escaped the japanese. They seem to be stuck in old, barely hidden macho samari type paradigms. They do well in focussing in on minute aspects of things. However, they seem incapable of macrovision, seeing the bigger picture of things. Cavemen w computers.

S

Satanus

Up until very recently, they have been victims of elitism: they are a unique people on a unique island.

S

The Cove - A documentary about the Slaughter of Dolphins.

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