Friday, February 18, 2011

VSO-Day

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."--Margaret Meade 

While the dolphin killers stayed in port today, and with the announcement of the Japanese whaling fleet leaving the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary early this season, it was a pretty good day for the Cove Guardians.  It's always good to have that bit of hope, but here in Taiji, that hope is literally measured day by day six months out of the year.

The dolphin killers don't want people to experience their tradition?
After checking to see that the dolphin killers had stayed in port, we made a stop at the Cove so Libby and Nicole could take some pictures for the Sea Shepherd chapter in Philadelphia.  The Cove is an ominous place whenever you're there.  The water looks so clean and clear that it's hard to imagine it's where thousands of dolphins have been murdered.  Where the water turns bright red, and the air is filled with the screaming and splashing of dolphins taking their final breaths.  Like the Cove, it's so bizarre the attitude the dolphin killers and trainers have toward the dolphins.  On the one hand, the dolphins are very valuable because of the amount of money a trained dolphin is worth.  But on the other, they're killing dolphins for their mercury-tainted meat.  It's like a cash grab, with no regard for what they're actually doing to the dolphins or the oceans.  The trainers are just as ruthless as the killers, doing their job while knowing the whole time what has happened to the dolphins that weren't selected to be sold into captivity.  The trainers have just as much blood on their hands as the dolphin killers.  They just slap each other on the back with their blood-stained hands, congratulating each other for another days dirty work.

I'm hungry!  You put me in here, so feed me you douche bags!
After the Cove, we stopped at ground zero for the trainers, Dolphin Base.  The pens that the dolphins are in are small.  They're not even comparable to a swimming pool in someone's back yard.  There could be anywhere from four to six dolphins in one pen.  At one time, the dolphins were swimming for miles a day in the ocean, and now they're in a fucking swimming pool waiting to be fed dead fish by trainers that claim to love them so much.  Dolphin Base is a place that you can actually stay at, and swim with dolphins in a concrete tank.  Sounds delightful.  The hotel itself is one of the nastier looking buildings I've seen since I've been here.  It's as if the building has taken on the personality of what's actually happening in the Cove.  The rust runs down the side of the building like blood.  Click here for a brief look at Dolphin Base. 

I have one more full day as a Cove Guardian before I head back to Virginia.  Since I've been here, fourteen Pacific White Sided Dolphins (including one juvenile and one infant) have been sentenced to a life of captivity by some of the greediest people on the planet.  There is no sustainable basis, but more importantly there is no moral basis.  The dolphin killers are free to do what they do, because the government of Japan allows them to do it.  In the United States, all we hear about is our freedom.  Question is, what do we do with it?  Do we decide to think for ourselves and act selfishly, or do we treat that freedom with respect and take the moral high ground.  Freedom can be the most wonderful thing, until someone else's freedom gets in the way.  Just ask the dolphins of Taiji.

Read this article by Dr. Lori Moreno about dolphins in captivity.  DO NOT buy a ticket to a facility that advertises captive dolphins.  When you support dolphins in captivity, you are supporting the dolphin killers in Taiji.  If you have not yet done so, please watch "The Cove."  Contact the Japanese Embassy and urge Japan to stop supporting the killing of dolphins and whales.  Together, we can help change this.

Check out my videos from my time in Taiji, and see what actually happens.  And visit Sea Shepherd for updates from the Cove.

End it now...








No comments: