Last night I watched The Cove documentary. This film is about the dolphine slaughter in Japan that happens every September. They estimate around 23,000 dolphins are killed each year.
Fisherman herd the dolphins into the bay by creating a wall of sound, by sticking a metal pole into the water and hitting it with a hammer which scares the dolphins. Once the dolphins are near shore, they set up nets so that no dolphins can escape. Buyers from Sea World and other marine parks come and pick out the dolphins that they want for their shows. The remaining dolphins are taken into a secret cove where nobody can see what happens next.
The next day, the fisherman return and using spears kill every single dolphin trapped in the cove, turning the water red with blood. Scuba divers find all the sunken dolphins and bring them onto the boats to sell as dolphin meat. Which is sad because dolphin meat contains very high levels of mercury and most people do not want to buy or eat it. Since no one wants to buy dolphin meat, they disguise it as whale meat which is much healthier. False advertising on the packaging means that people don’t even know they buying dolphin meat.
What can we do? Unless you live in Japan where these slaughters happen, its difficult to know how to help. So the best place to start is:
Watch the video below and then take action against dolphin slaughters at www.takepart.com/thecove