Captured on film: dolphin bloodbath Japan tries to hide

[defendandprotect]

Captured on film: dolphin bloodbath Japan tries to hide
By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent

Sunday, 30 August 2009

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.

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."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/captured-on-film-dolphin-bloodbath-japan-tries-to-hide-1779394.html

[Cetacea]

1. I wish they'd released "The Cove" months ago.

Many people who were formely unaware of this situation and are suitably outraged and disgusted have little time to do anything this year.

Petitions can be found at the offical site.

"http://thecovemovie.com"

Thanks for posting this.

[NOW tense]

2. "The Cove" trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw5qgVp0jng

[Cetacea]

5. They've toned it down a bit.

This is the original trailor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRD8e20fBo

[NOW tense]

6. Thanks. n/t

[UndertheOcean]

3. Hello , what about the gentle creatures called "Cows"

[Cetacea]

4. Do cows typically go out of their way to save humans?

I love cows, but there is a difference.

[UndertheOcean]

7. Life is life , there is no difference , we are just prejidiced towards creatures that

share our characteristics .

Until we stop murdering millions of cows and chickens and consuming there flesh we have no moral standing to condemn the Japanese.

[demwing]

8. Nonsense. The "all or nothing" attitude always leads to "nothing"

Just because all humans have flaws does not mean that humans have no moral standing to condemn atrocious behavior in other humans. The trick is to start acting in ways that change the way we think about life. Each attempt we make to protect life changes our understanding, and guides us towards a different direction.

This is a big ship. You don't change course drastically. You make small, incremental changes till you are pointed in the right direction.

[Mixopterus]

9. Yeah, sorry.

The tragedy of the Japanese murdering (notice the language) dolphins has always and will always be an issue of the dolphin's superior intelligence, as they are one of the few animals that possess an intellect that is even on the same level as homo sapiens sapiens. Cows, sadly, are not intelligent creatures and lack a good deal of the intellectual faculties that animals such as dolphins/orcas, elephants, and apes possess. Their death, while the ending of a life, is not comparable to an animal that possesses some degree of self awareness and a complex social network.

Murdering a dolphin, orca, elephant, or chimp is simply not the same as killing a cow, pig, or chicken.

And yeah, the Japanese do deserve a good deal of scorn for this, just like anyone who murders one of the handful of animals of higher intelligence deserves an equal amount of scorn.

[Pangolin2]

20. Murder is a legal term and has no standing in this discussion.

Do you live with a cat, just out of curiosity?

[flvegan]

11. No there isn't.

There is no difference, in reality. Only in your personal perception is there a difference.

[Mixopterus]

12. Of course there is a difference

Your claim that it is in my perception is simply not grounded in research or any real factual basis. Research has demonstrated time and time again that a handful of animals really can think in a manner that we have determined to be a higher tier of thought and intellectual capabilities. These animals, humans are included, are aware of themselves and their environment, understand symbols and abstract concepts including death and dying, feel genuine misery in certain situations, and respond to the death of those in their social group in a highly complex manner. These are real, discernible, concrete criteria.

A cow is simply not on the same intellectual level as an elephant, I'm sorry. Feel however you may about the killing of a cow and abstain from its flesh, but make no mistake, it simply does not possess the same level of awareness or intelligence as some animals do, which is the key difference.

[flvegan]

13. Again, you use a qualifier.

So again, it's via YOUR perception and your opinion of importance. Life is as much valued by that cow as is valued by a dolphin as is valued by a person. It doesn't matter that people think they matter less because they aren't as intelligent. It's a cowardly way to justify our "use" of them.

[Mixopterus]

14. One uses a qualifier

So they can actually discern a difference between categories of objects. The absence of qualifiers would render discrete categories of objects nonsensical, as they would be but one jumbled mess. The objective reality (or as close as we can get to it) shows that there are noticeable and recordable differences between animals in regard to a variety of different capabilities. Some are stronger, faster, and yes, smarter than others. To disregard these differences is to not only throw away science, but to be intellectually disingenuous.

[flvegan]

16. You're using it to impose your opinion of importance.

Hope you never go into any form of civil service.

[Mixopterus]

18. No

I'm using it to classify animals into meaningful categories, then taking those animals with the highest levels of intelligence and seeking to safeguard their welfare not unlike how one would safeguard the welfare of a human. It is unfortunate that your ideology cannot see the nobility of this stance, as it is a practical way to ensure the rights of those animals which are most deserving of our protection. If it makes you feel any better, I refuse to eat octopus due to their early, though superior, intelligence.

As for your little civil service jab, it's just that. If you can't rationally discuss the issue in a clear way that makes sense and has an intellectual foundation, than don't engage in the discussion to begin with. My criteria are not pulled out of thin air, or fashioned from whim, they are based on real, hard science and supported by scientists and the more reasonable members of the animal rights movement. Meanwhile, you have a religious, almost fundamentalist approach to the issue. I apologize in advance for saying this, but I don't think I'm the irrational party in this exchange.

[Pangolin2]

19. You are totally rational and have science to back you up.

As much as we humans with domestic pets would like to believe otherwise (and I love my dogs and cat), they have so far not demonstrated any clear evidence of self-awareness which is the hallmark of sentience, as I understand it.

But they can of course feel pain as can -most- but likely not all 'critters'...and to the extent that is true we should strive to avoid inflicting it on them even as we convert them from living to food. It's a pretty tough assignment to claim there's something 'wrong' with eating other animals when the natural food chain continues to operate with or without our participation.

[flvegan]

22. Why not safeguard the welfare of them all?

The cow's life is as important to the cow as the dolphin's is to the dolphin. You've already failed once to address that.

Fact is, they're all deserving of our protection and shouldn't be based on our opinions of them.

[Mixopterus]

23. Indeed

As you seem to have a disregard for classification and criteria, the cow's life is as important as the dolphin's life is as important as a bacterium's life is as important as a tree's life. Some research has shown that plants respond to injury, which can be interpreted as a pain response. Plants are most certainly living, so why do you murder plants to live? Bacteria are living too, why do you kill them when you go on antibiotics or clean your house?

Where is your method of classification that separates those living things which can be used for our fuel and those which we cannot use for fuel? Clearly, any method of classifying flora and fauna are merely subjective opinions, as you stated, so shouldn't every single living thing be treated the same?

[S_E_Fudd]

17. Inapplicable ...

Though I personally do not eat meat and would just as soon see factory farming die a quick death, there is a difference between cattle as a major food source for millions of people, and slaughtering dolphins as pests...which is what this action by the Japanese is.

Humans have a responsibility not to kill or torture animals for capricious or trivial reasons...the dolphin slaughter is exactly that!

[Bucky]

24. Oh for heaven's sake.

This is what's wrong with the progressive side of the fence. We try to raise a serious issue--the senseless slaughter of dolphins, an animal intelligent enough to self-recognize in mirrors, which is proof of cognitive self awareness--and someone has to come along and say "Well, life is life, so what about cows' rights?" and then someone else will go, "But what about cockroaches' rights? Cockroaches are people too!" and before long some feeb is arguing against us eating bread because wheat have feelings too, gosh darn it.

Enough! Cows are dumb critters fit only for eating. What's more, if you're gonna respect nature so much, you need to respect human nature. Being omnivores, the bulk of us are gonna eat beef. It's not the same as killing dolphins, apes, or elephants--the species that have been scientifically demonstrated to have self-awareness--or whales (who'd probably demonstrate the same ability if we could just invent a mirror big enough).

[Selatius]

10. You can't shame them into stopping. You have to legislate it and enforce it.

The Japanese government is the only authority here in the position to ban or permit this, and frankly, I don't think they are in a hurry to come down hard on this kind of activity.

[and-justice-for-all]

15. appalling...nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. awful. I can't watch it.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

25. How is it a big secret if they let him film it? n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Mercury, the way it concentreates in dolphin meat

it will literally be the revenge of the dolphins...

It is cruel and all that, but yes, if most Japanese knew just how much mercury is in the dolphin fillet... they may have second thoughts. And that is a way to stop this.

[Cetacea]

27. Kicking

Hoping for some one to come through tomorrow...