This past weekend I watched the controversial documentary, The Cove. For those of you that do not know about the movie it's about this cove in Japan (Taiji) where the Japanese currently kill thousands upon thousands of dolphins yearly. Fisherman go out in their boats and herd the dolphins into the cove, trapping them with nets. They proceed to pick out the ones they want, to sell to companies for $125,000 a pop (wherein the dolphins are held captive) and then kill the rest for meat.
Suffice to say the documentary horrified me! The movie points out several issues but the two biggest that I want to relay to you are as follows.
1. Thousands of dolphins are being killed for meat. The problem with this is that the Japanese culture doesn't eat a lot of dolphin meat. In fact, it's rare but the fisherman are telling the inquiring public that it's in their culture to eat dolphin meat. The documentary interviews a lot of Japanese people and we, the viewer, learn that the fishermen are lying. Furthermore, the fishermen are not being honest to the Japanese public. After investigating the docmentary shows that the fishermen are relabeling the dolphin meat as whale meat which is then sold to the public. So basically, people are eating dolphin meat when they think they are eating whale meat. (not that eating whale meat is any better in my opinion). The problem with dolphin meat is that it loaded with mercury. There is like 30-40% mercury in that meat when the acceptable amount of mercury in fish is only .0something. I can't remember the exact numbers but you get my drift. So basically the Japanese are posioning their people without them knowing it.
2. As if killing dolpins wasn't bad enough they are enslaving these intelligent creatures into captivity. You go to SeaWorld, you go to these "dolphin encounters" on your cruises and your vacations and where do they get these dolphins from?... The Japanese who pick out the good specimens in the cove and ship them off to people who can pay $125,000 a pop. All so mr and mrs joe schmoe vacationer can take a picture with dolphins. The dolphin smile is very missleading. Their mouths look like a smile but in fact that isn't them smiling. The star of Flipper narrates this documentary and he feels so incredibly bad about capitivy because he believes that the show he starred in spurred this need for people to hug a dolphin. There have been scientific tests showing that dolphins are self aware creatures. They show very high intelligence like apes and monkeys. He has seen first hand dolphins commiting suicide because they get so depressed in their tanks. So in fact these dolphins grins lead people ot believe they are happy creatures when in fact a lot of them are depressed. These are creatures that swim hundreds of miles a day. In capitivy they are confined to a tank. A tank people. How cruel is that? They are in essence in jail. They get depressed because they know they are stuck in a miserable tank.
Look at the below picture and read the story. These whales and these dolphins are intelligent beings and Japan is killing them at an alarming rate. We are already overfishing the ocean. If we continue at the rate we are going the ocean will be empty in 40 years. 40 years is in our lifetime people. This movie really effected me. We need to be very aware of our footprint on Earth. What I learned is that us humans are doing a really good job of killing the very habitat that we live in aka our planet. The whales and the dolphins keep our oceans going. Some scientists say that if we stopped hunting whales and let these animals do their thing we would have enough oil to last us forever. But by hunting them we are messing with the earth's natural way of taking care of itself. Our meddling is ruining this planet. Maybe it won't happen in our lifetime but our kids and their kids are going to have a pretty shitty world to deal with in a short amount of time.
I implore you to check on my Face Book page and read some of the links I have posted and take action. One person may not be able to save the world but a bunch of people together can. I really believe this. So people I ask yo to please get involved, whether its donating money, recycling, or boycotting Sea World. Every little action counts.
You might say why care about dolphins? But if we sit back and do nothing the problem won't go away it will only get worse. So I implore you to please save the dolphins, save the whales, and mos timportantly think about the way you live your life and how you can make the world a better place. We are not the only inhabitants of earth. All animals, plants, everything work together and it we cut down too many trees, kill too many fish, polute too much air it WILL go away.
Suffice to say the documentary horrified me! The movie points out several issues but the two biggest that I want to relay to you are as follows.
1. Thousands of dolphins are being killed for meat. The problem with this is that the Japanese culture doesn't eat a lot of dolphin meat. In fact, it's rare but the fisherman are telling the inquiring public that it's in their culture to eat dolphin meat. The documentary interviews a lot of Japanese people and we, the viewer, learn that the fishermen are lying. Furthermore, the fishermen are not being honest to the Japanese public. After investigating the docmentary shows that the fishermen are relabeling the dolphin meat as whale meat which is then sold to the public. So basically, people are eating dolphin meat when they think they are eating whale meat. (not that eating whale meat is any better in my opinion). The problem with dolphin meat is that it loaded with mercury. There is like 30-40% mercury in that meat when the acceptable amount of mercury in fish is only .0something. I can't remember the exact numbers but you get my drift. So basically the Japanese are posioning their people without them knowing it.
2. As if killing dolpins wasn't bad enough they are enslaving these intelligent creatures into captivity. You go to SeaWorld, you go to these "dolphin encounters" on your cruises and your vacations and where do they get these dolphins from?... The Japanese who pick out the good specimens in the cove and ship them off to people who can pay $125,000 a pop. All so mr and mrs joe schmoe vacationer can take a picture with dolphins. The dolphin smile is very missleading. Their mouths look like a smile but in fact that isn't them smiling. The star of Flipper narrates this documentary and he feels so incredibly bad about capitivy because he believes that the show he starred in spurred this need for people to hug a dolphin. There have been scientific tests showing that dolphins are self aware creatures. They show very high intelligence like apes and monkeys. He has seen first hand dolphins commiting suicide because they get so depressed in their tanks. So in fact these dolphins grins lead people ot believe they are happy creatures when in fact a lot of them are depressed. These are creatures that swim hundreds of miles a day. In capitivy they are confined to a tank. A tank people. How cruel is that? They are in essence in jail. They get depressed because they know they are stuck in a miserable tank.
Look at the below picture and read the story. These whales and these dolphins are intelligent beings and Japan is killing them at an alarming rate. We are already overfishing the ocean. If we continue at the rate we are going the ocean will be empty in 40 years. 40 years is in our lifetime people. This movie really effected me. We need to be very aware of our footprint on Earth. What I learned is that us humans are doing a really good job of killing the very habitat that we live in aka our planet. The whales and the dolphins keep our oceans going. Some scientists say that if we stopped hunting whales and let these animals do their thing we would have enough oil to last us forever. But by hunting them we are messing with the earth's natural way of taking care of itself. Our meddling is ruining this planet. Maybe it won't happen in our lifetime but our kids and their kids are going to have a pretty shitty world to deal with in a short amount of time.
I implore you to check on my Face Book page and read some of the links I have posted and take action. One person may not be able to save the world but a bunch of people together can. I really believe this. So people I ask yo to please get involved, whether its donating money, recycling, or boycotting Sea World. Every little action counts.
You might say why care about dolphins? But if we sit back and do nothing the problem won't go away it will only get worse. So I implore you to please save the dolphins, save the whales, and mos timportantly think about the way you live your life and how you can make the world a better place. We are not the only inhabitants of earth. All animals, plants, everything work together and it we cut down too many trees, kill too many fish, polute too much air it WILL go away.
..The
Whale... If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco
Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had
become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was
weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to
struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope
wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her
mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands
(outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for
help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined
that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and
untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and
eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in
what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and
every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently
around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most
incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the
rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole
time, and he will never be the same. May you, and all those you
love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who
will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.
And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.
I pass this on to you, my friends, in the same spirit.
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