Once again Taiji bloody season
September 1st - the Japanese Fisheries Agency once again opens the season on dolphins, including pilot whaling slaughter in Taiji,
Japan. Such event takes place in Japan every year from September to March. The Japanese Fisheries Agency and a handful of powerful individuals in the Japanese Government claim that the dolphin drive hunts are an important cultural tradition. The government of Japan allowing cetaceans to be slaughtered or captured, and this Japanese hunt is one of the biggest slaughters of dolphins and whales in the world.
However, extremely high mercury content in dolphins and whales has contributed to a marked decline in the demand for dolphin flesh. The majority of young people in Japan do not eat this meat and do not want to feed it to their children. Despite this fact, the slaughter of dolphins and whales continues.
Annually, tens of thousands cetaceans are being killed using the methodology of “drive hunting” or "the drive fishery," which is refers to the act of driving or herding cetaceans, specifically into coves. After a pod is chased into the cove, a few ‘show-quality’ dolphins are selected and separated away from their families and set to live in concrete tanks. In most cases, the rest of the pod is then killed. The dead mostly rot in cold storage with little to no market for their flesh. The few dolphins and whales who escape out into the ocean die alone without their pods, which are vital to their lives, or suffer from significant trauma from seeing their families and friends slaughtered before their very eyes.
According to an academic paper published in 2013 in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science titled A Veterinary and Behavioural Analysis of Dolphin Killing Methods Currently Used in the 'Drive Hunt' in Taiji, Japan, those killing methods involving driving a rod into the spine and using a pin to stop bleeding that is used by the Japanese in Taiji creates such terror and pain that it would be illegal to kill cows in Japan in this manner. Several veterinarians and behavioural scientists evaluated the current Taiji Japanese killing method and concluded that "This killing method….would not be tolerated or permitted in any regulated slaughterhouse process in the developed world."
Due to dolphin meat high contamination levels Japanese market for dolphin slaughter is about to shut down. However, the massive influx of economic support from the dolphin and whale captivity entertainment industry keeps the brutality going. The captivity entertainment industry’s demands for “good-looking” dolphins to replace those who die each year in captivity, and to expand captivity venues around the world are the primary sustainers of the continuing hunt in Taiji, as well as in other parts of the world.
In 2020, Tokyo will be hosting the summer Olympics, which are all about cooperation and celebration. The slaughter of whales and dolphins practiced by Japan are unacceptable act of barbaric behaviour and can’t be tolerated by international community.
Does Japan really need such black marks on their national reputation? Do they care or what is reason behind? The bottom line is not the question of reason but cruel act of killing.
How much longer the World can accept and tolerate such ignorance.
There is no tomorrow for the dolphins that are being caught by human madness.
To everyone who can stand up for the cetaceans - We Need to Act Now!
And remember that Japan is not the only country accountable for such brutal behaviour.
OA News
Blog Category: News
