Dolphins tortured and hacked to death in Japan:

[amborin]

"...Over the coming months, thousands of dolphins - some only a few days old - will be hacked to death.

Hundreds more will be sold into captivity, where they will die lingering deaths from stress and disease.

The dolphins are captured and slaughtered just off the southern Japanese fishing village of Taiji...."

snip

"As soon as the fishermen see a pod of dolphins, they launch an armada of small boats to capture the creatures. The fishermen first confuse and terrify the animals by banging steel pipes suspended in the sea.

This disrupts the dolphins' delicate sonar, which they use to 'see' their watery world. This wall of sound acts as an acoustic net - and once ensnared in this invisible trap, the dolphins find it virtually impossible to escape.

The fishermen then drive the hapless creatures towards a rocky cove. Once inside, nets are strung across the entrance to prevent their escape.

The terrified animals are then left overnight trapped in the tiny inlet. The fishermen claim this makes the dolphins' flesh softer, sweeter, tastier.

At dawn the next morning, traders arrive from all over the world to buy dolphins they can train for aquaria. A particularly cute creature can fetch £100,000.

But once the buyers have chosen their specimens, the rest are slaughtered. The fishermen begin slashing at the animals with gutting knives and impale them with sharpened poles.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1211311/Massacre-dolphins-How-dolphins-massacred-satisfy-food-fetish-poisoning-Japanese-eat-them.html#ixzz0QCjsRDOv
...."

/snip


<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1211311/Massacre-dolphins-How-dolphins-massacred-satisfy-food-fetish-poisoning-Japanese-eat-them.html>

[Liberty Belle]

1. How terrible. I'd never heard of this. What can we do to stop it?

[amborin]

2. it's shocking to read; maybe it will get more media attention and

some kind of boycott could get started?

[flvegan]

4. "The Cove" film is garnering a great deal of attention right now.

Thankfully.

[flvegan]

3. To start

http://www.savejapandolphins.org/

[amborin]

5. that's a great link, thanks!

[HillbillyBob]

6. Ther is a film by the guy that used to train Cathy aka TVs Flipper called

The film is called 'The Cove' I don't remember if it is or will be in theaters or how it is to be release.
Hearing his descriptions made me cry. I was driving at the time listening to it on NPR, I think it was on the Diane Rehm show, I had to pull over to get a handle on myelf.

I cannot recall his name right now. I listened to him talking about how captive dolphins become depressed and how Cathy had suicided.
Dolphins breathe by thinking about it, unlike most animals whose breathing is unconscious or automatic.

These dolphins that are slaughtered are sold for meat, which by the way has toxic levels of mercury, and the Japanese buy this tainted meat unknowing that it has all that mercury in it.

The trainer quit working for the Miami Seaquarium when when he reailized just how badly they feel to be held captive and that they are sentient creatures.

I don't buy tuna unless it is labeled 'dolphin safe', though I actually rarely buy canned tuna.

[flvegan]

7. Ric O'Barry.

It's in limited release right now.

[LeftyMom]

8. Tuna are extremely depleted, some species are near the brink of extinction

Also, "dolphin safe" tuna is just greenwashing. In the past the tuna fleets would find tuna specifically by looking for dolphin pods, as they often swim above the tuna, and unlike tuna they come up for air and are visible at the surface. Then they would catch them in great big nets, which would naturally involve catching some dolphins as well. That's illegal now, so the "dolphin safe" method is to attract the tuna with floating objects, (tuna, being predatory, are curious about objects that may be food) and then throw a net out. Since the foreign objects attract dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, bony fishes other than tuna, tuna, and probably partridges in pear trees, this method actually increases the bycatch of everything else, while modestly decreasing the bycatch of dolphins. Pelagic dolphin species are generally not considered endangered, while many of the other animals subject to increased bycatch are.

Further, the populations of tuna themselves are in terrible shape.

The ecological solution is not to eat tuna at all. "Dolphin safe" tuna isn't, and it's even worse for other seagoing creatures than the old method.

[earth mom]

9. OMG, I can barely read this OP and don't think I can handle clicking any of the links

Dolphins are my favorite...I am heartbroken.

:cry:

[Anakin Skywalker]

10. This practice is Disgusting! But the World Needs to be Made Aware!

[Triana]

11. Senseless, evil

:mad:
:cry:

[amborin]

12. thanks, everyone, for the responses, hopefully word gets out! n/t