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misoraSometimes Japan disgusts me.
It's bad enough that certain species of dolphin - highly intelligent, fun-loving and peaceful creatures - have been eliminated in certain countries because of human pollution.
But apparently, Japan is also killing them - around 20,000 of them per season - after hand-picking wild dolphins that are 'trainable' for aquariums and amusement parks. And not because they need them for food.
This makes me so incredibly angry.
My boyfriend watched "The Cove" and it broke his heart. He's a tough nut to crack, trust me. For this very good reason, he forbid me to watch it. However, he described to me with as few details as he could as to what's going on in the Japanese city of Taiji, and I was horrified.
I can't even think about it at length without crying.
Source: http://www.savejapandolphins.org/educate.php
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.
Stupid. Just so...so...stupid. And senseless.
It's bad enough that certain species of dolphin - highly intelligent, fun-loving and peaceful creatures - have been eliminated in certain countries because of human pollution.
But apparently, Japan is also killing them - around 20,000 of them per season - after hand-picking wild dolphins that are 'trainable' for aquariums and amusement parks. And not because they need them for food.
This makes me so incredibly angry.
My boyfriend watched "The Cove" and it broke his heart. He's a tough nut to crack, trust me. For this very good reason, he forbid me to watch it. However, he described to me with as few details as he could as to what's going on in the Japanese city of Taiji, and I was horrified.
I can't even think about it at length without crying.
Source: http://www.savejapandolphins.org/educate.php
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.
Stupid. Just so...so...stupid. And senseless.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-19 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-19 06:08 am (UTC)Whale meat and dolphin meat aren't even fit to be consumed. There's far too much mercury from the fish they ingest - the rule is, the bigger the fish, the less you should eat of it. Even bluefin tuna (which can get pretty big) is toxic to humans if you eat too much of it.
Kids in Japan shouldn't be served this at lunch, I'll tell you that much. Younger nervous systems are even more susceptible to mercury poisoning.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-19 06:22 am (UTC)