Dolphins don't want to be in showbiz!
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I've been to Seaworld in Florida 3 times. I had no idea that the dolphins are taken from the wild.
Dolphins live in family group, they are intelligent, they "talk" to each other and they form close bonds. When they capture them they are separated from their families and their children. Sometimes they are separated from suckling babies.
In captivity their lives are shortened by two thirds and they have to be fed anti-depressents to keep them alive. They can't even communicate with each other properly because the sounds bounce off the tank walls. It must be like living in a echo chamber where your words are echoed back to you so that you can't make any sense or hear anything meaningful. No wonder they go mad.
I'm not a big animal rights person normally. I've sent money to the RSPCA and IFAW but I had bigger things to worry about like who was going to be the new Doctor Who (Love Matt Smith!) and how much I detest Sharon Osborne (Hate her entitled, rude, attention seeking behaviour. Disgusting old harridan) But when I started to look into where these dolphins came from I was just sickened.
At the weekend more than 80 dolphins were captured in little town in Japan called Taiji.
Here they are... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDC6utUxK1A
They took 15 of them to sell to dolphin shows and "Swim with Dolphins" attractions. Luckily for the rest of them, there were people there who have given up their time to go to Taiji with cameras to try and save the rest. Because when no-one is watching the remaining dolphins are driven into a cove around the corner (Which is screened off to prevent anyone seeing) and they kill them by piercing them numerous times until they bleed to death. Unbelievable.
See... (There's nothing in close-up if you're like me and can't bear these things)
http://www.seashepherd.org.uk/taiji/taiji_ruthless_killing.html
This time they let the rest of them go. They let some go last year as well, but when the observers left the killing started. Every year they slaughter 23,000 dolphins. I'm going to say that again because I couldn't believe it. TWENTY THREE THOUSAND
And I have paid for this trade to continue. Me! When I paid god-knows-what ridiculous ticket prices to go to Sea World and watch the dolphon shows and pet the lovely "smiling" dolphins.
As I said, I just feel sickened.
Well, this is a bit of a serious post for me but I had to share with you peeps.
PLEASE DON'T PAY FOR THIS BARBARIC TRADE BY BUYING TICKETS FOR ANY ATTRACTION THAT HAS CAPTIVE DOLPHINS - You may well want to swim with dolphins but (no offence) they don't want to swim with you! I think they'd probably prefer to be in the sea with their family
It's the only way to make this stop. If you want to know more visit..
http://www.seashepherd.org/ (They have sent observers to Taiji) or
http://www.savejapandolphins.org/
Thanks for indulging me!
Dolphins live in family group, they are intelligent, they "talk" to each other and they form close bonds. When they capture them they are separated from their families and their children. Sometimes they are separated from suckling babies.
In captivity their lives are shortened by two thirds and they have to be fed anti-depressents to keep them alive. They can't even communicate with each other properly because the sounds bounce off the tank walls. It must be like living in a echo chamber where your words are echoed back to you so that you can't make any sense or hear anything meaningful. No wonder they go mad.
I'm not a big animal rights person normally. I've sent money to the RSPCA and IFAW but I had bigger things to worry about like who was going to be the new Doctor Who (Love Matt Smith!) and how much I detest Sharon Osborne (Hate her entitled, rude, attention seeking behaviour. Disgusting old harridan) But when I started to look into where these dolphins came from I was just sickened.
At the weekend more than 80 dolphins were captured in little town in Japan called Taiji.
Here they are... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDC6utUxK1A
They took 15 of them to sell to dolphin shows and "Swim with Dolphins" attractions. Luckily for the rest of them, there were people there who have given up their time to go to Taiji with cameras to try and save the rest. Because when no-one is watching the remaining dolphins are driven into a cove around the corner (Which is screened off to prevent anyone seeing) and they kill them by piercing them numerous times until they bleed to death. Unbelievable.
See... (There's nothing in close-up if you're like me and can't bear these things)
http://www.seashepherd.org.uk/taiji/taiji_ruthless_killing.html
This time they let the rest of them go. They let some go last year as well, but when the observers left the killing started. Every year they slaughter 23,000 dolphins. I'm going to say that again because I couldn't believe it. TWENTY THREE THOUSAND
And I have paid for this trade to continue. Me! When I paid god-knows-what ridiculous ticket prices to go to Sea World and watch the dolphon shows and pet the lovely "smiling" dolphins.
As I said, I just feel sickened.
Well, this is a bit of a serious post for me but I had to share with you peeps.
PLEASE DON'T PAY FOR THIS BARBARIC TRADE BY BUYING TICKETS FOR ANY ATTRACTION THAT HAS CAPTIVE DOLPHINS - You may well want to swim with dolphins but (no offence) they don't want to swim with you! I think they'd probably prefer to be in the sea with their family
It's the only way to make this stop. If you want to know more visit..
http://www.seashepherd.org/ (They have sent observers to Taiji) or
http://www.savejapandolphins.org/
Thanks for indulging me!
0
Comments
Most Japanese people know nothing about it. In fact the killing is done by 26 Japanese fishermen, sometimes helped (believe it or not) by the dolphin trainers that are in Taiji to select the ones they want.
Have you seen it? I bought the DVD because I thought I should watch it. I haven't gathered up enough courage yet - coward that I am. I think it's probably quite upsetting.
Same for me. I didn't even think to question where they came from or whether the dolphins were happy. They have "happy" faces which probably doesn't help.
Also the dolphin trainers are always so wholesome and attractive when they're telling you how far they swim and how much they eat etc. None of them mentioned that the dolphins had lost their entire families when they'd been butchered or that they were captured from the wild and were now reduced to begging for food in exchange for tricks.
I haven't watched your links. I don't know if I have the stomach for it.
People will still go to these shows. The only thing you could do is write to the newspapers or get your local news media to highlight this.
I kind of assumed they were captive bred as well. But they don't breed well in captivity as they suffer terrible depression, don't get a live diet and can't swim to the areas of the sea where they normally breed naturally.
Also they die very young (I guess they would be about aged 24 in our years) so they need to be constantly replaced.
The links aren't bad. The first just shows dolphins swimming in a netted off area. None of those were killed. (Although they usually spear one or two during the drive to injure them. Dolphins won't desert an injured member of the pod so it keeps them all together)
There are no signs of any injuries though.
The second link, while not showing any individual dolphins, shows the cove and the sea is quite literally bright red. You should see it. I am very careful not to expose myself to images of cruelty but I'm glad I looked at these images. It really brought it home to me.
Thanks for that. I might have a look later today:)
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-100914-1.html
I hope they don't start up again when the dolphin dealers have disappeared
Well worth reading in the context of this article - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6973994.ece
Thanks!
And thanks back to you because that is a brilliant article!!! Says it all really. Makes you ashamed to be human sometimes - the things that we do as a species.
Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'
Jonathan Leake
Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.
Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.
The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.
“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has used magnetic resonance imaging scans to map the brains of dolphin species and compare them with those of primates.
“The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions,” she added.
Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children. Recently, however, a series of behavioural studies has suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose, could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future.
It has also become clear that they are “cultural” animals, meaning that new types of behaviour can quickly be picked up by one dolphin from another.
In one study, Diana Reiss, professor of psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York, showed that bottlenose dolphins could recognise themselves in a mirror and use it to inspect various parts of their bodies, an ability that had been thought limited to humans and great apes.
In another, she found that captive animals also had the ability to learn a rudimentary symbol-based language.
Other research has shown dolphins can solve difficult problems, while those living in the wild co-operate in ways that imply complex social structures and a high level of emotional sophistication.
In one recent case, a dolphin rescued from the wild was taught to tail-walk while recuperating for three weeks in a dolphinarium in Australia.
After she was released, scientists were astonished to see the trick spreading among wild dolphins who had learnt it from the former captive.
There are many similar examples, such as the way dolphins living off Western Australia learnt to hold sponges over their snouts to protect themselves when searching for spiny fish on the ocean floor.
Such observations, along with others showing, for example, how dolphins could co-operate with military precision to round up shoals of fish to eat, have prompted questions about the brain structures that must underlie them.
Size is only one factor. Researchers have found that brain size varies hugely from around 7oz for smaller cetacean species such as the Ganges River dolphin to more than 19lb for sperm whales, whose brains are the largest on the planet. Human brains, by contrast, range from 2lb-4lb, while a chimp’s brain is about 12oz.
When it comes to intelligence, however, brain size is less important than its size relative to the body.
What Marino and her colleagues found was that the cerebral cortex and neocortex of bottlenose dolphins were so large that “the anatomical ratios that assess cognitive capacity place it second only to the human brain”. They also found that the brain cortex of dolphins such as the bottlenose had the same convoluted folds that are strongly linked with human intelligence.
Such folds increase the volume of the cortex and the ability of brain cells to interconnect with each other. “Despite evolving along a different neuroanatomical trajectory to humans, cetacean brains have several features that are correlated with complex intelligence,” Marino said.
Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them.
Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, will speak at the same conference.
“The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said.
Seaworld (I'll use them as an example as you quoted them first) don't just 'take' animals from the wild, can up imagine the uproar if they did? Besides how exactly do you think they would train a wild dolphin....they generally don't.
The majority of thier dolphins, whales and pinnipeds (seals etc) are aquired via breeding agreements with other aquariums. They also have a licence to take in injured or sick marine mammals that face no chance of going back to the ocean (they rehabilitate and breed from these).
http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4586918_sea-world-its-animals.html
now if you can show me proof that these dolphins went to the parks/companies you are quoting fine, but until then perhaps you should becareful who you make slanderous comments about.
Of course there are parks out there that take the animals from the wild (as many zoo's do, illegally) but places like seaworld are trying to fight against that.
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/03/the-cove-star-ric-obarry-on-seaworld-gary-smith/
http://swimatyourownrisk.com/2008/04/28/dolphin-dies-in-freak-accident-at-sea-world/
http://blog.timesunion.com/animalrights/seaworlds-disgrace/1557/
http://www.lifescapemag.com/seaworldseamisery/
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/144339
http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/ar-seaworld.html
http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/death_at_sea_world_in_florida_043008.html
I'm sorry if you believe the hype but that's up to you. Sea World only announce where an animal is sourced from if it came "legit". Do you honestly believe that Sea World with it's immense population of cetaceans is self sufficient and obtains them all through captive breeding? And that's besides the out and out cruelty of keeping them in tanks and making them perform and beg for food. I will let the above speak for themselves. Someone coined Sea World as "A World of Misery". I think that says it all.
Not one of the links you posted proves (or even suggests) they take healthy animals from the wild.
All you have done is post repeatedly about 2 seperate incidents that were tragic but nothing to do with the dolphin slaughter in Japan.
I've looked up the Taiji Cove hunts, and have found that is actually 2000 dolphins a year, NOT 23,000 and they are mostly killed and sold for meat. SOME are sold to aquariums in Japan, N.Korea and some Arab states......countries that have little or no animal rights laws.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/photogalleries/091229-cove-movie-dolphins-hunting-pictures/
Whilst I don't agree with the way it is done, and I agree, they shouldn't be sold alive, at the end of the day they are being killed (mostly) for food.
How is it any different to the western world hunting?
Because dolphins are cute people jump on the bandwagon and believe the hype people like seashepherd spout.
YES it is sad to see, and to our eyes very very cruel to slaughter the dolphins like that. But I really don't get how Seaworld etc have managed to get the blame from you?
You obviously didn't read them if you think the above relate to only two incidents.
Of course Sea World distance themselves from the killing. They do this by buying from third parties. But where do you think the third parties get them from? They die so quickly in captivity that there is NO SUSTAINABLE CAPTIVE POPULATION. Sea World have never stated that none of their dolphins are wild-captured because many of them are. Have a look at the wording they use. They are very careful.They say something along the lines of from captive bred programs (That can't be many) and other zoological institutions. Where do you think the other zoological institutions get them from? From Taiji! Because Taiji is the main source of all captive dolphins!
They are not stupid at Sea World and of course they avoid scandal. But you are really being naive if you think Sea World do not have any wild caught dolphins.
Some more facts for you
* 53% of those dolphins who survive the violent capture die within 90 days.
* The average life span of a dolphin in the wild is 45 years; yet half of all captured dolphins die within their first two years of captivity. The survivors last an average of only 5 years in captivity.
* Every seven years, half of all dolphins in captivity die from capture shock, pneumonia, intestinal disease, ulcers, chlorine poisoning, and other stress-related illnesses. To the captive dolphin industry, these facts are accepted as routine operating expenses.
* In many tanks the water is full of chemicals as well as bacteria, causing many health problems in dolphins including blindness.
* When a baby dolphin is born in captivity, the news is usually kept secret until the calf shows signs of survival. Although marine mammals do breed in captivity, the birth rate is not nearly as successful as the one in the wild, with high infant mortality rates.
* Wild dolphins can swim 40 to 100 miles per day - in pools they go around in circles.
* Many marine parks subject their mammals to hunger so they will perform for their food. Jumping through hoops, tailwalking and playing ball are trained behaviors that do not occur in the wild.
* Confined animals who abuse themselves (banging their heads against the walls) are creating stimuli which their environment cannot supply. Dolphins in captivity tend to develop stereotypical behaviors (swimming in a repetitive circle pattern, with eyes closed and in silence) because of boredom and confinement. This is equivalent to the swaying and pacing of primates, lions, tigers and bears confined in cages.
* Dolphins are predators of fish and spend up to half of their time in the wild hunting for food. Supplying dead fish results in less exercise and lack of mental stimulation, thus causing boredom.
* When trapped together, males often become agitated and domineering. This creates pecking orders (unknown in the wild) and unprovoked attacks on each other and the trainers. In the ocean, although fights are not unknown, the wild dolphins have a chance to escape.
THEY WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE....
Dolphinariums claim that their mission is to protect dolphins in the wild through research and public education. Those are nice words but facts speak louder. If dolphins are so happy in captivity, why do they die so fast? Why the secrecy about their mortality rates? There would be fewer spectators if people knew how many animals were "dying" to amuse them. Perhaps if the death records were displayed at the entrance, no one would buy a ticket.
Education?
Most dolphinariums have made little or no contribution to education about dolphins. Jacques Cousteau believed that captive dolphins are conditioned and deformed and bear little resemblance to dolphins living in freedom in the sea. It's like studying human psychology only in prisons, which leads, obviously, to misinterpretations and absurd generalizations. As people learn more about the wild cetaceans, they pity more the captive ones. As TV, computers, and virtual reality become greater educational tools, the justification for keeping captives on display disappears.
Research?
We blindfold dolphins to study the efficiency of their echolocation system. We put probes in their larynxes and nostrils to examine their sound production. We train them to push buttons and levers, to choose between materials and colors, we teach them to speak. We clamp them down, drill holes into them, and dissect them. Why? They do not exist as subjects for agonizing experiments by man. Dolphins suffer no less than humans. The only way scientists should study dolphins is to swim with them in the wild. No argument can rationalize the forced confinement of these highly intelligent creatures. Dolphins are innocent sufferers in a hell of our making.
The Good News is...
Fortunately for the dolphins, more and more people are becoming concerned about dolphin suffering, and uncomfortable at sea circuses. Citizens are now speaking out loudly that dolphins and whales belong in the ocean. This is the only hope. Imagine this: A theme park has a dolphin show and nobody goes. The owners will soon close down. There would be no dolphin shows if no one paid to watch them.
Sea Shepherd are the only organisation that I actually know have people on the ground in Taiji watching and filming what is happening there. There are 3 people there now who have given up their own time to do it so that they can share pictures with the outside world.
Sea Shepherd were the first people to investigate Taiji and bring it to the public's attention back in 2003. Well before the Cove documentary.
If it wasn;t for Sea Shepherd the 55 dolphins that were released this week would be dead.
If that makes that "extreme activists" I'm sure they will be very proud to bear the title and if they're asking for donations I hope they get them.
Regarding animal rights in the UK, there are actually very strict rules when it comes to research with them enshrined in the Animal Acts Right 2006. So I cannot believe that the research you describe is still going on, at least in the UK.
Let us not forget what research was carried out on humans across the world in the name of Psychology, until the arrival of ethical guidelines.
If I disapprove of something, the best way to get something changed is a. to publicize it - which you are. However, the sources have to appear to be valid to target audience, and as somebody has pointed out they do seem to be from sources with an 'agenda'. b. is to vote with your feet, if you and those you can persuade of your viewpoint, don't give money to seaworld and other similar organisations, they will fold as they are after all business ventures.
You should also be prepared for this not to happen though, and for people not to be converted, as after all we live in a world, in which we allow lots of things to be done to humans for the sake of oil !
Hereby endeth my sermon....