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Captured on Film: Dolphin Bloodbath Japan Tries to Hide
Documentary team – including the man who trained Flipper – aims to stop the annual slaughter
On Tuesday, in the Japanese town of Taiji, the killing will resume. Several dozen dolphins will be herded into a secluded cove, where a few will be selected for marine amusement parks. The rest will be speared with knives and harpoons. By the end of the day, the water in the picturesque cove will be crimson.
Documentary 'The Cove' shows dolphins driven to death or captivity by the fishermen of Taiji. (Photo: The Independent) On Wednesday, the same gruesome sequence of events will unfold. And so it will continue for six months, until the dolphin hunting season concludes. Around Japan, about 20,000 of the gentle, intelligent mammals are killed every year, more than 2,000 of them in Taiji, which - according to a new film, The Cove - is the site of the world's largest dolphin slaughter.
The documentary, to be released in Britain in October, shines an unforgiving light on Taiji, "a small town with a big secret", according to its American director, Louie Psihoyos. He hopes it will help halt the annual bloodbath. Dolphins, he says, "are the only wild animal known to come to the rescue of humans ... and I thought it is about time somebody tried to rescue them."
Psihoyos embarked on the project after visiting Taiji with Ric O'Barry, an animal rights campaigner who used to train dolphins for the 1960s television series Flipper. Working undercover with a team of activists, they captured graphic footage which forms the award-winning film's deeply disturbing climax.
In Taiji, residents are fiercely protective of their hunting tradition, and the cove, surrounded by steep cliffs, high fences and razor wire, is heavily guarded. Tailed constantly by police officers, the film crew were challenged by fishermen whenever they approached the site. "The fishermen have told me they would kill me if they could," said O'Barry. "They just can't figure out how to do it quietly."
O'Barry is fired by the missionary zeal of the reformed sinner. After the Flipper series ended, he experienced an epiphany and since then has worked to free dolphins around the world from captivity. But he blames himself for the popularity of marine theme parks - a multibillion-dollar industry which he believes drives the annual cull. "I spent 10 years building the industry up and the last 35 years trying to tear it down," he says. "The fishermen get $500-$600 [£300-£370] for a dead dolphin, but more than $150,000 for a live show dolphin. It's only these live captures that keep the hunt going. Otherwise it would probably not be economically viable."
Why are the other animals not released, rather than being butchered? O'Barry claims it is "pest control", sanctioned by the Japanese government. The fewer dolphins, the less competition for dwindling fish resources. Those killed are sold for meat - often passed off as more desirable whale meat, and heavily laced with mercury, O'Barry alleges.
The documentary follows Psihoyos and his colleagues on their covert mission, as they dodge their minders to penetrate the cove and install hi-tech cameras and microphones on the ocean floor and inside fake rocks. What they acquire, after 14 secret forays, is highly disturbing footage. As the dolphins pass by, the fishermen surround them in boats and lower poles into the water, banging them to frighten their prey and confuse their sonar. The panic-stricken creatures are then herded into the narrow cove, trapped in nets and stabbed repeatedly. As the sea becomes a watery abbatoir, the dolphins flail and thrash for long, agonising minutes, giving the lie to official assertions that they die instantly.
Yet the Taiji slaughter is perfectly legal. Although dolphins belong to the same family as whales, they are not protected by the international ban on commercial whaling. O'Barry, director of a coalition of environmental groups, Save Japan Dolphins, claims the film shows "the Disney version" of what really happens. But he hopes it will galvanise the public. The Taiji fishermen, he says, told him that "if the world finds out what goes on here, we'll be shut down". If The Cove achieves that, O'Barry will have repaid his debt to the dolphins.
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10 Comments so far
Show Allanother nail in the coffin of 'humankind'..............
What with helping endangered humans and working as entertainers dolphins should be known amongst our sea dwelling fellow terrans as the "collaborators of the sea". For all we know whales, sharks and assorted invertebrates may be rooting for their destruction. I'm just saying...
Anyone who has shared an ocean journey with dolphins knows the joy and vitality that these amazing creatures personify. As they leap and weave in the waves calling to one another, the lucky onlooker experiences their primal enthusiasm for life and community. The bloodbath now sanctioned by the Japanese government, is unconscionable. As in any massacre – families are destroyed, lovers murdered, children orphaned, and all in the most brutal expression of inhumanity possible.
It is all the worse because these creatures obviously know what is happening and so suffer horribly.
The filmmakers deserve our respect and admiration for putting this in the public eye… Now it is up to us – with eyes open, to get international law (even in the name of science !?!?!) to prohibit egregious brutality in any form.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
Once again, humans show their true colors. Sure is great being at the top of the food chain. Pretty disgusting, if you ask me.
You can write to the Japanese embassy and tell them you aren't buying Japanese products until the slaughter of whales and dolphins stops:
jicc@embjapan.org
And here's the amazing trailer for "At the Edge of the World," the new documentary about the Sea Shepherd's Antarctic Campaign against the Japanese whaling fleet (paste it all on one line in your browser):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO9qLMZj1Y8&eurl
=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2
Efacebook%2Ecom%2Fhome%2
Ephp&feature=player_embedded
This barbarous behavior has been going on forever in human history. What's different now, is that we're finding out about them.
The first step to stopping humanity's brutality is finding out about it. To me, this information should not be cause for despair and hopelessness, but acknowledgement that our work is just beginning and that on our deathbeds we can say to the next generation, "we knew it was wrong and did all we could to take responsibility for correcting it. We didn't hide our eyes."
In the end, acting responsibly is the only thing that distinguishes us from the barbarians.
AMERICAN HYPOCRITES
When we take it upon ourselves to learn about the horrors on our American factory farms and slaughter houses, the amount of antibiotics and hormones in the animals, it becomes difficult to condemn the Japanese. When we learn about how much of our natural environment is being destroyed to raise food for meat production and when we learn how much of our precious fresh water is being consumed to raise meat animals it becomes difficult to condemn the Japanese. Americans are wholly as bad as the Japanese.
A VEGETARIAN DIET TAKES A FRACTION OF THE NATURAL RESOURCES REQUIRED TO RAISE MEAT ANIMALS AND IT'S FREE FROM ANIMAL CRUELTY.
Our meat industry is a disgrace to nature.
Please read; Diet For A New America by John Robbins
Stupid heartless humans.
ugh...
this is so incredibly sick --
look...the issue isn't american hypocrisy --
american hypocrisy is a whole other ball of wax --
this is about something just absolutely disgusting and horrible -- these beautiful, intelligent, free creatures --
mercilessly slaughtered ---
incredible
I'm sorry but it is equally sick for people to have this hypocritical and distorted view of animals, people, and Japan.
To the people of Taiji dolphins are a threat to their fish stocks, and a source of food and an income derived from eliminating a pest.
Rather than this naive blame and shame flick appealing to millions of people who cannot identify a hamburger with a cow, or bacon with a big, it would be far better to understand that fisherman are under ever greater pressure of increased costs and diminishing catches, and that there is a real need to replace their incomes and livelihood. To these people, right or wrong there is no difference between a dolphin and a cow, (and I've known some pretty clever cows in my time too), a tuna or any other fish that they may catch.
Furthermore if there is the slightest truth to what the film maker, O'Barry alleges that, "Those killed are sold for meat - often passed off as more desirable whale meat, and heavily laced with mercury", the Japan Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, would immediately prohibit the meat from entering the market. Health and welfare and food labelling are very strict in Japan.
It often helps in finding a solution to change things for the better by having understanding and compassion for the apparent perpetrator too. I expect too that the present change of government from LDP will have a profound effect on whaling and allied activities too.
And as for you in America and other NATO countries you could start by protecting whales and dolphins from the killing and maiming by LFAS (low frequency active sonar) used by the navy, but I guess that is different!
http://www.awionline.org/ht/d/ContentDetails/i/1442/pid/723
That kills over a far and wider area, often unseen and causing long and agonizing suffering to these beautiful animals but of course this film is far more graphic and immediate, and here those terrible Japanese are the bad-guys (again).
It's too simple and easy to push these buttons, and it does not only aggravate antagonism, it does little to develop long term solutions. This requires more brain and less emotion.