#Tweet4Taiji - One killer lays on tarps as one fluke is revealed for our cameras.
WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES.
A Look Inside the Taiji Slaughterhouse.
This is from 2010, but it’s still relevant and shows exactly what they’re trying to hide.On October 11, 2010 a pod of dolphins were driven into the cove. The following day, I saw these beautiful creatures swim into the cove and come out dead bodies. The fishermen are very careful to hide the evidence of their actions, hiding the bodies under tarps and keeping people from filming the slaughter. But on this day I got lucky and managed to get close up photos of the fishermen cutting up the dolphins inside the slaughterhouse. They left a door slightly open, and I stuck my camera under it. One of the fishermen eventually spotted me from the grocery store across the street and shut me down, but I got them cutting off the dolphins’ fins and chopping up the torsos. It was one of the hardest things I have ever seen and I will never be the same. This is the footage I collected over those two days.
Read the article here: A Look Inside the Taiji Slaughterhouse
Taiji - Activists say that a pod of bottlenose dolphins fought for six hours to escape being captured before Taiji fishermen – with the help of the Japanese Coast Guard, wrestled the exhausted dolphins into submission.“In 3 years of being here I have never seen the likes of this,” wrote animal activist Martyn Stewart on his Facebook page. Stewart, a sound recordist, is in Taiji to document the dolphin drives that run from Sept. to March every year in the Wakayama Prefecture of Japan.Read more: HERE
Disgusting.
Free fax link inside the article to try to help save this pod of dolphins.
10 Sep 2012 @ 01:16PM /
2 notes TAGGED AS: cove updates taiji japan dolphins bottlenose dolphin Japan
Stop the slaughter.
More information and ways you can help:
Sea Shepherd - Cove Guardians - What you can do
Behind the Dolphin Smile by Ric O’Barry
Behind the Dolphin Smile chronicles Richard O’Barry’s extraordinary journey from dolphin trainer to world-renowned advocate for dolphin freedom. In his early years, O’Barry trained dolphins to entertain audiences for shows at aquatic theme parks and for roles in movies and television shows, most notably Flipper. His career as a trainer came to an abrupt halt when one of the dolphins that played Flipper on television died of stress in his arms. At that moment, he realized that keeping dolphins in captivity and teaching them to do tricks was cruel and morally wrong. He began to understand that dolphins were easy to train not because of his gifts as a trainer, but because they are remarkably intelligent, and he vowed not to rest until he freed every last one of them.
25% of the purchase of this book will be donated directly to Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, helping to support Ric O’Barry’s dolphin conservation efforts world wide.
Buy it here
03 Sep 2012 @ 12:45AM /
22 notes TAGGED AS: ric o'barry Dolphin Project The Cove dolphins captivity Flipper
“The Dolphin Project team arrived has in Taiji, 32 people from 5 continents, all dedicated to stopping the dolphin slaughter that officially begins tomorrow on Sept. 1st.
Meanwhile, protesters from around the globe have begun to celebrate Japan Dolphins Day in their cities. Stay tuned for more updates!”
You can read the full blog post by clicking the title
You can follow updates via their Twitter and Blog.
Wishing the best of luck to these guys. xx
The Cove Campaign is Working (click image for full higher resolution)
There a little less than 4 days until the slaughter in Taiji starts again.
Learn what you can do to help:
Participate in Japan Dolphins Day 2012
Never be silent. Never give up.
(via thebeautifulocean)
Activists have accused a Hong Kong theme park of “dolphin slavery,” but the park says it knows what it is doing
The main attraction at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park is a dolphin show with an earnest message about humans and animals living in harmony.
Yet, David Wong of Hong Kong animal rights group Animal Earth says the shows are “detrimental to moral thinking.”
“Animal shows distort people’s view of animals’ natural behavior. The very act of capturing the animals strip people of all respect that they may have for animals.”
The organization will participate in a protest on August 26 against “dolphin slavery” at Ocean Park, together with Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society and Animal-Friendly Alliance.
“On September 1, 2011 activists in 31 cities around the globe participated in the events in this video. On August 31 & September 1, 2012, activists in more than 93 communities will stand up for the dolphins of Taiji. Look at what a difference a year has made! There will be events from Aarhus, Denmark to Tokyo, Japan to Washington, DC and everywhere in between. To find an event near you, click on this link:https://www.facebook.com/events/258475854256641/
NEVER BE SILENT ~ NEVER GIVE UP!”
24 Aug 2012 @ 11:32PM /
0 notes TAGGED AS: Save Japan Dolphins Save Japan Dolphin Day Dolphins slaughter
The Japanese town of Taiji received unwelcome attention when The Cove, a film following its annual dolphin hunt, won an Oscar. Sayuri (not her real name), who worked as a dolphin trainer in Taiji in the 1990s, gives her reaction to the film.
“When I saw the film I was deeply shocked. What the movie shows is very similar to my own experience of working as a dolphin trainer in Taiji. Only it went further and showed things that even I hadn’t seen.
Before I ever became a dolphin trainer, I had read many books that made me think that keeping dolphins in captivity was bad.
I wondered whether or not I should choose this profession and I decided to temporarily leave the aquarium that I was working at. I set out for Japan’s Ogasawara Islands to meet some wild dolphins.
I was literally blown away when I first saw wild dolphins. Those dolphins were smiling, they were happy. They had an agility that the dolphins in aquariums just didn’t have.
I became worried about the dolphins that I had left behind in the aquarium. I wanted to protect them, to make their lives just a little happier. And so I became a trainer of captive dolphins.”
Read the rest of this here: BBC News - Dolphin hunt: ‘We must open our eyes’
These parts really got me upset:
“All I could see was that a rope was tied around the fin and they were taken away. What I didn’t know was that they get trapped in a small cove and killed in such a violent way, that the ocean would turn red from their blood.”
“There was one time when I went to the cove every day. It was when a family of killer whales was chosen for the aquarium.
“They were anxiously swimming around and with each passing day, the big dorsal fin of the leader of the group would turn over on its side and it would look up with such a sad expression.”
“I have seen myself fisherman rejoicing over news that a group of killer whales was caught and that a lot of money would be coming in.”
“Foreigners would often come to Taiji to buy dolphins and I remember them saying that Taiji was the only place in the world where they were able to buy dolphins so easily.”
This is just one reason why I cannot support captivity. The brutal slaughter, the selfish profit. It hurts my heart that these dolphins are suffering for our selfishness.
