Saturday, April 30, 2011

Learn More

Do you like my blog and want to learn more about dolphins and their worst enemy? Then here are a few things that can help you learn more:


You can purchase The Cove at animalplanetstore.com and on amazon.com. The Cove is also available on Netflix.

Another great site to visit is savejapandolphins.org where you can donate and receive gifts for your donation (including a DVD of The Cove), sign petitions, link to the facebook page and much more  

Whale Defenders of Germany (http://www.walrettung.org/html/about_us.html) talks all about the Taiji dolphin hunt and the Faroe Island pilot whale hunt. You don't have to live in Germany to get education from it. It's just located in Germany. It also has a video of the Pilot Whale slaughter.

Go to http://www.thecovemovie.com for information about the film

Go to http://www.takepart.com/cove for lots of interesting information including the movie trailer (the video on the opening page) and blog

Another great website is seashepherd.org

Go to http://www.takepart.com/cove/dolphin-hunting for an introduction and very interesting interactive world map (click on 'hunting hotspots') that shows where all cetacean hunting takes place. Click on 'sign the petition' down towards the bottom for a link to the care2.org petition.

Care2.org and change.org have a lot of great petitions on every topic

Wikipedia has a whole page on dolphin drive hunting around the world, as well as a whole page on Japanese whaling and another page on Faroe Island whaling.

Denmark's Bloodbath


This is how I like to see them. Credit goes to Oceana
    Known as the Grindadrap in the Faroe Islands, annual massacres of long an short-finned pilot whales have been a joyful tradition since as early as 1586. Each year these extremely social, intelligent and sensitive animals are slaughtered extremely brutally by heartless people who believe to prove themselves as "men" by participating in this slaughter. Anywhere from 1,000-3,000 pilot whales alone are killed each year. Occasionally, Northern bottlenose whales, Atlantic white-beaked dolphins, harbor porpoises, and Atlantic white-sided dolphins are caught too, but it is mainly pilot whales. But any species will be taken.

  When a pod is spotted, it is driven into small bay or fjord. They used to be stabbed to death in the blubber with gaff hooks. Now, blunt gaffs are beaten into the blowhole to drag the 20-foot long whale into shallow water as they fight and try to escape. They say that the blunt gaff is more humane than the ordinary gaff, which is now only used to pull dead whales ashore. But the blocking of the airway panics and causes extreme pain to the animal. It would be the same if you shoved a hook down somebody's throat or up their nasal cavity and then dragged them around. Killing evolves clubbing, stabbing, thrashing, and screaming. They slash the arteries and veins that supply blood to the head or cut the spinal cord, all with a large whaling knife called a grindaknivur. As the whales' screams and cries fill the air, the men laugh and curse. The whales are claimed by the Faroese to die within seconds, tops being two minutes (as stated in the Faroese book, Two Minutes). The Sea Shepherd crew have observed the slaughter and say that the whales don't die in two minutes, they die in about ten.

  After they are dead, cranes are used to pull whales out of the water and tractors are used to transport them to the dock. Once on the dock, they cut open all the whales. Sometimes, a fetus will be pulled out of a female. Not caring that they have just killed a pregnant female, the slaughters will cut umbilical cord and the calf will be set beside its mother for show.

  Men teach their sons how to slaughter whales, and most of the slaughterers are young men and teenage boys. In a video, there was a little boy standing by a dead whale with a butter knife in his hands. A woman was holding his hand and teaching him how and where to cut the whale. Later in the video, the same little boy was watching men butcher the whales, and he then turned towards the camera and smiled. Then, it showed three little toddlers sitting around a dead whale, and one was sitting on it's tail. It also showed a picture of a smiling boy sitting by a dead whale with a knife to it's neck. Another picture revealed children standing in the bloody water. All children get a day off school to view the slaughter, and the rest of the town comes to see as well. They just stand there, watching without pity or emotion. I can't even watch dolphin killings on film without getting sick to my stomach, I don't know how anyone can watch in real life and just sit there unemotionally, especially little kids. Any human who does this sort of thing to any animal or any person, is hardly human at all. Even the ones who don't participate and just watch are not normal if they show no emotion. My father once told me that it is normal to get upset when you see cruelty, it is abnormal if you enjoy the site of cruelty.

  If you have the stomach to watch the video I described above, please take a few minutes to watch it, to see for yourself what is actually done to these animals. If what I described of the video bothered you, definitely don't watch it. Even if you think you can watch it, please be warned. I have a pretty strong stomach and I cried watching it. The footage contains a slide show of pictures and actual video. Here's the address:

http://www.walrettung.org/html/walrettung.html  

WARNING: Here are some photos of the slaughter. I suggest that sensitive people should not scroll down any further.
Children happily walk down the aisles of dead whales

The whole down has gathered around the cove to witness the tradition

Notice how people just stare down into the water
Most of the slaughterers are young men


A typical meal of pilot whale meat, blubber, dried fish, and potatoes

Atlantic white-sided dolphins
Northern Bottlenose whales
The blood filled bay
A hook jammed in the blowhole. They call that humane???
An aerial view of a town after a slaughter has just taken place




Saturday, April 23, 2011

Japenese Fishermen in Taiji can't be trusted

Japanese fishermen in Taiji say that The Cove is now factually incorrect. They used to kill dolphins by slitting their throats, but they say that they have a new way of killing dolphins, that they now kill them fast and humanely (similar throat slitting techniques have still been reported in 2006, long after it was banned). But, it is all a lie. Video was shot on January 17th that clearly shows that there is nothing quick and humane about the slaughter. The dolphins even try to jump up on rocks to escape. Fishermen drive metal spikes in the back of the necks behind the blowhole. The Japanese Fisheries Agency say that this kills the dolphins instantly. Many other sources say the same. The footage shows not. It shows dolphins struggling in agony for long minutes. More than forty dolphins were killed that day, and the footage proves that these fishermen cannot be trusted.

Even though that The Cove has been viewed by Japanese audiences and the worldwide pressure to stop the slaughter grows, Japan continues the killings of dolphins.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Great News for dolphins in the Soloman Islands

For the last 450 years, dolphins have been killed in the Soloman Islands. But, none have been killed in the past year, for villagers have agreed to stop the slaughter! Estimated, 2,000 dolphins were killed annually, but this year, they are safe and unharmed. The meat was always eaten and the teeth were used as a form of money. But dolphins are still being captured for dolphinariums, but activists are seeking an end to that as well.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Introduction: Where it happens

Dolphin slaughter happens in many places around the world, but it is most popular in Japan, mainly the town of Taiji (The last known Futo hunt took place in 2004). Japan hunts and kills more cetaceans than all of the other hunting countries combined. The Taiji drive fisheries will take any species, and hunt mainly pacific white-sided, striped, spotted, bottlenose, rough toothed, and risso's dolphins as well as pilot and false killer whales. Cetaceans have a lot of blood in them, and it obvious when they are cut.

The largest hunts take place in Taiji, the Soloman Islands (where they're hunted for teeth as well), the Faroe Islands, and even Peru. They used to be hunted in Kiribati, Taiwan (where some are still killed, but a lot less), and even Hawaii, but no longer takes place. Much smaller, less known harpoon hunts of various toothed whale species such as orcas, pilot and false killer whales, porpoises and other dolphins take place in many other parts of the world, usually only killing a few hundred a year. In 1979, photos were taken on Iki Island of a fisherman stabbing dolphins to death with spears in shallow water. Even though that cetacean meat is polluted with large amounts of mercury poisoning (not dangerous to the animal though), they are hunted mainly for meat. A few of them end up in dolphinariums, but the majority of them are killed. Usually, when a pod is spotted, they are driven into a bay. In Taiji, fishermen bang metal poles with hammers to create sounds underneath the water that confuses the dolphins. The animals sit overnight to calm down, and are harpooned one by one the next day. The Faroe Islands even give children a day off school to come watch the slaughter. Many different species of dolphins such as spinner, dusky, striped, spotted, risso's, and bottlenose as well as pilot and false killer whales and porpoises are killed in different hunts around the world.

I am very sorry if this first post turns people away from my blog. I understand if my blog is too depressing for some of you, but we all need to know. I have decided that if I post pictures on my blog, I will put warnings. They may make some people sick. I just want to help get the word out for those who haven't already seen The Cove, a 2009 award winning documentary about dolphin hunting in Taiji, Japan. Even if you have seen it, my blog talks about it other parts of the world too.