It's Up To Us - Japan Dolphins *WARNING - Graphic Images Within as well as truth*

[PyraLynne]

WARNING: GRAPHIC PICTURES WITHIN, TRUTH LIES WITHIN

        Save Japan Dolphins

Save Japan Dolphins is a coalition of six organizations committed to ending the slaughter of approximately 20,000 wild dolphins a year in Japan. Save Japan Dolphins also promotes dolphin conservation and anti-captivity efforts around the world.

      

Each year in the small fishing town of Taiji, Japan, thousands of wild dolphins are herded to an out-of-sight cove where dolphin trainers from around the world come to select the desirable dolphins for dolphinariums and “swim with the dolphins” programs. The remaining dolphins are brutally slaughtered, a practice that is hidden from the citizens of Japan and the rest of the world. Save Japan Dolphins has been an integral part of exposing this secret.

www.SaveJapanDolphins.org

         

Facts about the Dolphin Slaughter.

About 23,000 dolphins, porpoises and other small whales are killed in Japan every year, making it the largest scale slaughter of cetaceans in the world.

• About 2,500 dolphins and other small whales are killed in the so-called dolphin drive hunt that takes place six months out of the year.The rest are killed with handheld harpoons out at sea.

• In the small fishing village of Taiji, Wakayama prefecture, the dolphin drive hunt is carried out by about 26 fishermen from September 1st though March.

• Operating with 13 motorized boats, the fishermen go out to sea at early sunrise and look for migrating dolphins. Banging on metal pipes submerged into the water, they terrorize the dolphins with a "wall of sound," causing the dolphins to panic.

• Terrorizing the dolphins with underwater sound, the fishermen herd the dolphins into a secret killing cove close to Taiji Town.

• Often times, dolphins die during the chase that can last eight hours or more.

• The Taiji fishermen claim that dolphins eat too much fish and therefore must be exterminated.

                    

IF you can bare to read more...please...continue.

Get Educated

In Japan, fishermen round up and slaughter hundreds and even thousands of dolphins and other small whales each year.

                  

In the small fishing village of Taiji, entire schools of dolphins are driven into a hidden cove after a prolonged chase. Once trapped inside the cove, the fishermen kill the dolphins, slashing their throats with knives or stabbing them with spears. The water turns red with their blood, and the air fills with their screams.

                   

This brutal massacre — the largest scale dolphin kill in the world — goes on for six months of every year. Even more scandalous, members of the international dolphin display industry take advantage of the dolphin slaughter to obtain some few, show-quality dolphins for use in captive dolphin shows and dolphin swim programs.

                     

It is commonly assumed that Japanese fishermen hunt dolphins to supply a small minority of Japanese people with dolphin meat. But unlike the expensive whale meat, dolphin meat is not considered a delicacy in Japan, and the real reason the Japanese government issues permits to kill dolphins by the thousands every year has nothing to do with food culture. It has to do with pest control. As shocking as it sounds, some Japanese government officials view dolphins as pests to be eradicated in huge numbers. During a meeting at Taiji City Hall, the fishermen of Taiji admitted this to us. "We don’t kill the dolphins primarily for their meat. We kill them as a form of pest control," they told us. In other words, killing the competition is their way of preserving the ocean’s fish for themselves.

                                          

Most likely in order to push the food culture issue even further, the Japanese government recently introduced pilot whale meat to children's school lunch programs, despite the fact that the meat is tainted with mercury and not fit for human consumption. The Japanese government and the dolphin hunters do not warn the Japanese people of this danger, although the dolphin meat should be labeled as toxic. Much of the tainted dolphin meat ends up as counterfeit whale meat in Tokyo and other large cities.

                                                

Science has established that dolphins are highly intelligent and complex marine mammals. How can "pest control" on dolphins continue with so little opposition from the Japanese people and the outside world? The answer is secrecy. Since we first traveled to Japan in 2003 to document the dolphin hunt and expose it to the world, the fishermen have become increasingly paranoid about being photographed and filmed. Today, they hide the dolphin slaughter behind barbed wire, ropes and tarpaulin. Killing the dolphins before daylight breaks, they station guards at the mouth of the killing cove to ensure that no one witnesses the blood bath.

                                 

The fishermen say they kill the dolphins "quickly and humanely." That's an outright lie. The methods used to kill the dolphins are so savage, it's hard to believe it unless you witness it for yourself. And once you've seen it, the images and sounds of the screaming dolphins never go away. The fishermen know that the world will be outraged when the truth gets out. And so, guided by their government, they hide behind phrases such as "food culture" and "tradition." They even once told us they are proud of what they do. If they had told us they were having fun while killing dolphins, we would have believed them. We have heard them laugh out loud as they were throwing spears at the dolphins and hauling them ashore with ropes, or dragging still live dolphins by their tail flukes to be slaughtered. If they were really proud of this, then why do they go to such extreme measures hiding it? Why won’t they even let their own people know about the hunt? We asked them this once, and the answer was: "It is none of their business." But it is their business. The Japanese people have every right to know about the dolphin slaughter. And they have a right to know about the mercury-poisoned dolphin meat that is being fed to their children.

                          

                                        

I am not asking anyone to donate funds or anything of that matter, that choice is yours. I am simply trying to educate. If any of this has interested you, made you feel within and you want to learn more then please check out the movie "The Cove".

[PyraLynne]

Mar. 12, 2010 at 1:50 AM

No comments at all? This makes me sad as well.

(Original Poster)

[PyraLynne]

Mar. 12, 2010 at 2:04 AM

i dare you to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wK31g_ufHg

(Original Poster)

[momof5inohio]

Mar. 30, 2010 at 1:00 AM

omg I can't believe this I have watched shows they eat almost everything over there. Seriously disturbing

[SexyPirateBitch]

Apr. 27, 2010 at 1:44 PM

 Thats messed up Pyra :(

[PyraLynne]

Apr. 27, 2010 at 3:02 PM

Quote Inga: The problem is the high mercury content in dolphins and these people feed it to their children as well and they become very sick, it is deadly/toxic. And a lot of them are not even aware that this is going on.

Trainers from aquariuma/marine parks also go there to "the cove" to pick out dolphins to bring back for the shows. This is another reason I am boycotting Sea World. It was my favorite place ever until I learned about what we are really doing to these creatures and I am not just speaking about dolphins...whales, seals etc..if they are using the creature for purely entertainment purposes then I cannot support it. If they are re habilitating the creature then I am for it. Bottom line.

(Original Poster)

[SunshineSmiles]

Apr. 27, 2010 at 3:19 PM

omg