'Tis the season. Please read, watch, and sign. (disturbing)

[Cetacea]

Re-posted from the vid section for increased visibility:
edit:warning

"My Friend is.." PSA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAwr-LUwh_I&feature=player_embedded




September is here and a small group of Japanese fishermen are poised to resume their brutal genocide on the "Humans of the Sea", or dolphins, in September.

brief :

Dolphins are intelligent, self-aware mammals with bonded social interactions. Adult female dolphins who lose their young have been known to stop eating until they die. Groups of dolphins stay with and aide other dolphins in distress. They have been known throughout history to save human lives...

The acute sense of sound of dolphins is as important to them as eyes are to us. But in that cove in Japan, sound tragically becomes their undoing. Fishermen bang long steel poles against the hulls of their vessels. Dolphins frantically swim away from the deafening sound and into into a large netted trap. From that point until their last breaths they are in a state of panic.

The PSA above shows a young dolphin vainly trying to escape the fate of his/her parents and friends. Many of the dolphins who are driven into the deadly cove die from heart attacks before they are brutally stabbed, perhaps driven insane from fear and confusion; perhaps even a sense of betrayal.

Eventually they are harpooned from fishermen on small boats. Other are stabbed with knives by fishermen wading in the water. Our ears can only hear a small portion of the sounds they emit, but their rapid high pitched whistles clearly indicate that they are crying, perhaps screaming as they slowly drown in the blood of their friends and family. Sadly ironic, some fishermen try to kill them instantly by spearing them through their brains, the same brains that resemble human brains in size and complexity more so than any other animal, including the great apes. Some suffer for up to twenty-four hours. Defenders unfairly compare these barbaric acts to the slaughter of chickens and cows. Perhaps many of them believe that dolphins are fish...

Surely this horrible display of man's inhumanity to cetaceans does not reflect the sensibilities of a majority of people, including most of the people of Japan. We must not let a small group of fishermen and a small element of the Japanese government continue to get away with is essentially brutal and systematic mass murder.

Please sign the petition and lets try to end it once and for all this year.
Thanks for reading this.

c

Petitions





http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/end-dolphin-slaughter-... /

http://www.savejapandolphins.org /

[one_voice]

1. Signed..

passing it along. I love dolphins.

Wish I could rec more than once. This is important.

[Cetacea]

2. Thank you!

[pinto]

3. 'The Cove' - 2009 Academy Award nominee / Documentary

http://www.thecovemovie.com/

:kick:

[Catherina]

4. Watched it two nights ago. Heartbreaking. It gave me nightmares. Rec'd n/t

[Cetacea]

11. Thanks! n/t

[onestepforward]

5. I clicked the link to sign

and it said the page has been moved. I did find several other petitions on that site for dolphins and whales that I signed.

[Cetacea]

7. Thank you.

Care-to-care updated their link. Sorry!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/724/210/624/

[kctim]

6. Is this an ancient rites thing

or do they use them for food?

[Cetacea]

8. This particular method is unique to Taiji.

"The film's focus is Taiji, but 20,000 dolphins are hunted across Japan each year, leaving Taiji residents feeling unfairly targeted, according to Coco Masters of Time Magazine. "The Cove" also leaves out the Japanese tradition of reverence for animals that are killed for human use. As a result, some see the film as "another bout of foreign outrage at a practice that is legal, regulated and culturally acceptable in Japan," Masters writes. But the method of slaughter known as oikomi, in which dolphins are chased into shallow coves, trapped in nets and killed with a harpoon, is only practiced in Taiji. Opponents consider the process inhumane.
Background: Tradition of dolphin hunting
According to the BBC, "Dolphin and whale meat has been eaten for centuries in Taiji," and residents "resent being told by foreigners what they should eat." The job of a dolphin hunter has been glamorized in the small town, and is considered "one step up from being an ordinary fishermen," Yoshiro Kogai, a dolphin hunter, told the BBC..."


Dolphins that are not killed in the drive are sold for up to 150k to sea parks.

[kctim]

10. Thank you

was just curious if for food or was just some senseless right of passage thing or something.

[ceile]

9. done n/t