The intelligence of dolphins is probably comparable to the one of humans – considering the different environment and different physical abilities. Yet, they’re being slaughtered every year in one of the world’s cruelest hunting events: the Taiji Dolphin Hunt in Japan. Even foreign politicians and their representatives in the Japanese embassies are shocked and disgusted and try to put an end to the annual slaughter of hundreds of dolphins, calling people to take action. Such is the case with U.S. ambassador Caroline Kennedy. Yet, the Japanese government has never really helped the cause.
Japan is a country the problems of which have become immense after the Fukushima incident in which the Japanese government showed a very unethical behavior as well. The country needs to be put under international pressure. The dolphin hunt is one of the worst and bloodiest events in the world performed on defenseless animals. It has to stop.
US ambassador Caroline Kennedy ‘deeply concerned’ about Japanese dolphin hunt
Caroline Kennedy, the US ambassador to Japan, speaks out over the “inhumanness” of practice of corralling dolphins in secluded bay to then kill them for meat, the subject of Oscar-winning documentary ‘The Cove’
( Reuters) 3:30AM GMT 20 Jan 2014
The annual dolphin hunt currently under way in Taiji in western Japan has long been a source of controversy and was the topic of “The Cove,” an Oscar-winning documentary.
“(I am) deeply concerned by inhumanness of drive hunt dolphin killing,” Kennedy tweeted at the weekend, adding that the U.S. government opposes drive hunt fishing.
Every year the fishermen of Taiji – a small fishing town in Japan’s Wakayama prefecture – drive hundreds of dolphins into a cove, select some for sale to marine parks, release some back into the sea and kill the rest for meat.
The annual dolphin hunt currently under way in Taiji in western Japan (Photo: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society/AFP)
Sea Shepherd, one of several animal protection groups that monitor fishermen in Taiji, said on Monday that more than 200 dolphins have been rounded up into the secluded bay by the shore off Taiji.
The organisation is streaming live footage of Taiji’s cove, showing fishermen on several fishing boats rounding up the dolphins inside the bay. The dolphins are cordoned off by large fishing nets.
Taiji shot to global infamy after the 2009 release of “The Cove,” which was directed by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos. The film followed eco-activists who struggle with Japanese police and fishermen to gain access to the location of the hunt.
The movie met with fierce opposition in Japan from groups saying it was “anti-Japanese” and an affront to traditional culture.
Japan has long maintained that killing dolphins is not banned under any international treaty and that the animals are not endangered, adding that dolphins need to be culled to protect fishing grounds. (Source: The Telegraph)
Behind the horrific dolphin hunt is an unscrupulous mafia – a fact that the team of the award winning 2009 documentary “The Cove” had to acknowledge quickly when trying to film the facts and events around the hunt. The film feels like a thriller and is worth watching it.
Please take action, share this article and spread the information. Make the information go viral. Help making this a better world.
(Lara Lamberti)
Related links:
Japan defends annual dolphin hunt as “Traditional” for the Japanese culture..
http://www.oceandefenderhawaii.com/taijis-rare-albino-dolphin-uncertain-fate-world
http://sunsetdaily.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/from-yoko-ono-regarding-taji-and-natural-gas-in-ny/
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-01-21/japan-depends-dolphin-hunts-after-international-criticism/
Official blog of Lara Lamberti 
Reblogged this on The Blog of Mystica.
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This is absolutely atrocious, totally unacceptable. I consider such a thing to be outside of the boundaries of any national right to cultural independence. When we talk about criminal acts committed against human beings in many countries such as Syria, Iran and others, we forget that such a slaughter takes its roots in the same barbaric mentality committed in these countries and that such an action is no less atrocious. Japan has the right to its sovereignty, as Lybia, Syria, Iran do but there, when the level of atrocities is such that countries such as Britain, France or the USA find it legitimate to interfere with the unacceptable crimes committed against women, children and men, for these crimes outweigh any concept of national affairs, they consider it less atrocious when it comes to other intelligent beings such as dolphins – suffering is suffering full stop! The same Britain, France and USA without forgetting all the countries of the world which claim to be morally superior and claim military inference to be a natural right and duty overpowering any national legitimacy when it comes to humans, this very countries turn a blind eye to the suffering of this magnificent beings, these miracles of nature which have proven their compassion so many times, have saved men from drowning, have kept boats from meeting their end at the hand of rocks hidden in the water and led sailors to safe port – WHY? Isn’t horror horror, isn’t despair despair? It’s time to shout a huge “NO” and to make a stand, as this slaughter is an insult to the very sense of the word decency – as long as this monstrous acts keep on happening, as long as the Japanese government does’t put a stop to it, Japan should be simply banned from the United Nations and more it should be banned from NATO. Then I wonder how long the Japanese would let this shameless insult to human decency happen… HOW LONG WITHOUT THE PROTECTION OF NATO would they keep on making the sea red with tears of blood when one knows that China is knocking at their very door and would love to make many parts of Japan a Chinese colony if the protective umbrella of the world were to be removed from the so called land of the rising sun – it would be better named the land of the perpetual insult. That what should be done. OH YES I WILL SHARE, often and everywhere!
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Thank you. Have shared it on FB!
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