This is the first Day They will Have killed and stolen Dolphins in Taji Japan (Day 11)
Taiji: 7 boats in formation pushing a pod of dolphins. #DolphinProject#Tweet4Dolphins 8:20am and you know something now, I watch the boards at Ric's (O'Barry) and at the Sea Shepherd site and its the same thing every year. The postings are the same every year. Swim Dolphins, Swim. Break Free Dolphins, etc. and we know its not going to happen. These dolphins are mince or they will be stolen into slavery to perform for you people that attend those types of events.
The bottom line is that we need to stop this from happening. Its barbaric. Its insane. It is stealing from our oceans.
All these Dolphins are guilty of if you sill, is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Enough already. We need to stop it from happening and we need to work harder to do it.
Thanks to the people on the ground but we the people here need to stop going to these places that teach them to jump through a hoop so to speak, and we need to change International laws at once.
That is where it starts and where it stops.
This is no different than human slavery because think about it, we took Black people away from their every day life. We put them into slavery for no money while we housed them in small confined places for when they did not work. Or, we killed them.
This is no different.
These people that are part of private companies (if corporations are people too my fiends, well then what about the morals aspect of an individual?) that are kidnapping Dolphins are killing them as a way for them to make money or they are putting them to work so that company can make money.
What we are doing to these animals is just not fair. It is not morally sound at all. It is not cool.
And, we still have a half year more of this being able to happen by law. We need to change the law(s).
Don’t Expand Cruel Dolphin Attractions
Six Years Later: Did 'The Cove' Impact Dolphin Hunting in Japan?
Last Tuesday, a 75-year-old American man named Ric O’Barry was arrested in Japan around 10 PM for driving without a passport. While paparazzi snapped photos, he was taken from his car to a local jail. After calls from the embassy and at least one Congressman, the man was quietly released 24 hours later.
O’Barry, formerly a dolphin trainer for the TV show Flipper, has been a target for Japanese police for years. Rocketed to fame by the Oscar-winning film The Cove in 2009, O’Barry has been trying to convince—or force—local fishermen to stop hunting dolphins for decades. But fishermen set out in boats this week once again, looking for dolphins. Has anything changed in the six years since The Cove came out?
The fishermen of Taiji call the hunt a local tradition. Using speed boats, they corral massive pods of tens or even hundreds of dolphins and push them into a secluded cove on the island, where they are either killed for meat or captured.
Over the past few decades, the hunt’s focus has shifted from butchering dead animals to capturing them alive so they can be trained and sold to aquariums and marine parks. According to the Oceanic Preservation Society, the organization that produced The Cove, just one live dolphin can fetch upwards of $200,000.
Ric O’Barry in Japan with an albino dolphin caught in Taiji. Credit: DolphinProject.net
Now, critics say, the hunt has become part of a large commercial industry. Dolphins, whose complex emotional and cognitive abilities have been demonstrated by scientists, shouldn’t be used for meat or for entertainment, they argue.
The tide may be changing, however.
Last year in Taiji, due to declining demand for meat, increased awareness about the hunt, and pressure from activists, the number of dolphins slaughtered and taken captive hit a record low.
Japan’s country-wide dolphin catch is now down to less than 6,000 animals from 23,000 when the film was released, said The Cove’s director, Louie Psihoyos, in part because of the gruesome images of dying dolphins and blood-red water that splashed across film screens in the US and elsewhere.
Activists also pressured the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) to cut ties with its member group in Japan, the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums (JAZA), because it certified marine parks that bought captive dolphins from the hunt. WAZA suspended the Japanese branch last April. Shortly after, JAZA released a statement saying that it would officially ban its members from acquiring dolphins from the Taiji dolphin drive fisheries.
Another reason the dolphin hunt is losing supporters is the meat itself, which is widely known to be contaminated with dangerously high levels of mercury and PCBs. One 2010 government report found that Taiji’s 3,500 residents had mercury levels that were above the national average. The country’s Health Ministry has cautioned people about eating dolphin meat before, noting that many samples of dolphin meat in Japan have been found to exceed the safe limit for mercury levels—some as high as 5,000 times over.
Nevertheless, the hunting boats are still heading out. The Taiji Fishermen’s Union, which sets yearly quotas for the hunt, is allowing hunters to capture or slaughter a total of 1,873 cetaceans (whales and dolphins) during the 2015-2016 season. They can take 462 bottlenose dolphins, 450 striped dolphins, 400 pantropical spotted dolphins, 256 Risso’s dolphins, 134 Pacific white-sided dolphins, 101 pilot whales, and 70 false killer whales.
“I wish I could say that you make a movie, and the world changes the next day. But it takes a while for culture to catch up,” Psihoyos told Motherboard.
He and the Oceanic Preservation Society just recently bought the rights to release The Cove for the first time in Japan, where many citizens are unaware about the hunts in Taiji.
“Hopefully, they are just as horrified as western audiences have been,” he said. “Most people there don’t believe it. They just can’t believe the horror that goes on inside their own borders.”
Taiji: 7 boats in formation pushing a pod of dolphins. #DolphinProject#Tweet4Dolphins 8:20am and you know something now, I watch the boards at Ric's (O'Barry) and at the Sea Shepherd site and its the same thing every year. The postings are the same every year. Swim Dolphins, Swim. Break Free Dolphins, etc. and we know its not going to happen. These dolphins are mince or they will be stolen into slavery to perform for you people that attend those types of events.
The bottom line is that we need to stop this from happening. Its barbaric. Its insane. It is stealing from our oceans.
All these Dolphins are guilty of if you sill, is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Enough already. We need to stop it from happening and we need to work harder to do it.
Thanks to the people on the ground but we the people here need to stop going to these places that teach them to jump through a hoop so to speak, and we need to change International laws at once.
That is where it starts and where it stops.
This is no different.
These people that are part of private companies (if corporations are people too my fiends, well then what about the morals aspect of an individual?) that are kidnapping Dolphins are killing them as a way for them to make money or they are putting them to work so that company can make money.
What we are doing to these animals is just not fair. It is not morally sound at all. It is not cool.
And, we still have a half year more of this being able to happen by law. We need to change the law(s).
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Target: Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) Planning Department
Petition: Click Here To Sign
Goal: Do not allow marine attraction company to exploit more animals by building new dolphin parks.
Dolphin Cove has unveiled plans to expand their parks to a biodiversity hotspot known for its variety of endemic marine species and wild dolphins. Dolphin attractions exploit dolphins for financial gain while ripping them away from their families and keeping them in restrictive tanks. Despite captivity being a detrimental and cruel place for these intelligent creatures, the Turks and Caicos Islands government has amended regulations to allow marine mammals to be kept for display, exhibition and performance.
The Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) are famous for JoJo, a wild bottlenose dolphin who voluntarily interacts with humans. The locals have deep admiration for these beautiful creatures and TCI historically had laws forbidding their confinement, earning a reputation for being a haven for marine mammals. TCI is where Barbara Young, an advocate with the environmental non-government organization Pride, freed the UK’s last remaining captive dolphins.
The new Dolphin Cove park, which was recently granted outline planning permission, would be built on a critical habitat for flamingos, conch and mangrove. So, while harming the dolphins inside the park, it could also devastate the ecology around the park. It would be a travesty for a dolphin attraction to be built in such an ecologically viable place with a rich past of dolphin advocacy.
Dolphins are intelligent, social, self-aware, emotional, and cultured creatures. Being held in captivity is a traumatic and stress-inducing experience for them. They are held in restrictive tanks and deprived from food and stimulation. Demand that the TCI Planning Department does not allow Dolphin Cove to exploit their diverse islands and harm the dolphins who have historically found refuge in their waters.
Dear TCI Planning Department,
Dolphin Cove has received outline planning permission to build a new attraction on your islands. Dolphins are highly intelligent and social creatures who are self-aware and display a broad spectrum of emotions. Dolphin parks force dolphins into captivity, where they live out their lives in constant stress and trauma. TCI has historically been a haven for dolphins and it would be a travesty to have the equivalent of dolphin slavery allowed in your waters.
Dolphin attractions do not provide the research, conservation or education that they claim to. They are a business that exploits dolphins for profit. Experts on dolphins agree that for people to learn about dolphins’ ways of life, they must see them in the wild. There have been claims that a dolphin park could bring in more tourism and boost TCI’s economy. However, a dolphin park would be a direct conflict to your ecological image and upset the current tourism that’s drawn to your wild dolphins. As the horrors of dolphin captivity are becoming common knowledge, dolphin parks are going to be able to draw in less tourism.
The problems that will arise from a Dolphin Cove existing on TCI range from the negative effects it will have on your tourism due to boycotting to the more prevalent moral crimes against the dolphins. Please stay true to your history of being a haven for dolphins and do not allow Dolphin Cove to expand to your islands.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: themeparkgc
Latest developments very concerning – Update on "Wake Bali Dolphins: Free four wild dolphins contained in a tiny resort pool" Free four wild dolphins contained in a tiny pool at Wake Bali Adventure
As a regular ocean user and surfer, interaction with dolphins in their natural habitat occurs semi-regularly.
The discovery of an adventure park on the beach containing a small pool 10m x20 m about 400 metres south of Komune Resort and the famous Keramas surf break housing 4 dolphins in chlorinated water for tourists to swim and play with was a huge shock.
A similar dolphin facility was closed down 2 years ago by the Minister of Forestry, Zulkifli Hasan, with a pledge to close any other dolphin attraction sites.
After initial protests when the Indonesian owned, Wake Bali Adventure Park opened last July, the resort still remains open and the dolphins remain trapped in a tiny chlorinated pool.
This is a request for Wake Bali Adventure Park to free the dolphins and allow them to be re-introduced into the wild, where they belong.
Please note that there are NO dolphins in the pool at Komune Bali Resort at Keramas and Komune’s owners Tony Cannon and Luke Egan are both surfers and actively support organisations protecting marine mammals.
Also note, these dolphins can't be simply rescued and returned straight to the ocean. They need to be rehabilitated and there are pens setup for this detailed here.
About This PetitionHector’s and Maui’s dolphins are the smallest and rarest marine dolphins on earth and live only in New Zealand. Gillnetting and trawling have decimated these diminutive dolphins to near extinction and continue to kill them faster than they can breed.
Hector’s dolphin numbers have dropped from 29,000 to around 7,000 since the 1970s. The situation for Maui’s dolphins, a subspecies of Hector’s dolphins, is even worse. With just 50 survivors, Maui's dolphins are facing imminent extinction.
Despite these low numbers, the New Zealand government is refusing to protect the country’s only native dolphins against fishing nets. Less than 20 percent of the dolphins’ home is protected against set nets and less than 10 percent against trawling, which simply isn’t good enough to prevent their extinction. Experts have called for a ban of these fishing measures across the dolphins’ habitat for more than three decades. But the New Zealand government isn’t listening and the fishing industry denies all responsibility.
Each year there are fewer dolphins left. How many more have to die before the New Zealand government acts and protects their entire habitat from harmful nets?
International pressure is crucial to saving Maui's dolphins and your support will show that the world cares about New Zealand’s forgotten dolphins. Please join the call for a full and immediate ban of gillnetting and trawling throughout Maui’s and Hector’s dolphin habitat in coastal waters up to a depth of 100 meters, including harbours.
Very rare pink dolphin spotted again (and she may be pregnant).
Captain Erik Rue of Calcasieu Charter Service first spotted the mysterious pink dolphin they affectionately call, "Pinky" in 2007 out while fishing on his boat with his company Calcasieu Charter Service. The young dolphin was spotted in Calcasieu River's ship channel.
Captain Erik Rue of Calcasieu Charter Service first spotted the mysterious pink dolphin they affectionately call, "Pinky" in 2007 out while fishing on his boat with his company Calcasieu Charter Service. The young dolphin was spotted in Calcasieu River's ship channel.
Rue said, 8-years ago the baby pink dolphin would always swim near her mother. Now, nearly a decade later, "Pinky" swims on her own and sometimes with a pod of other dolphins. Ever since the day he first saw the mysterious dolphin, he's always been fascinated. He believes that "Pinky" is one of the world's only dolphins with this color pigmentation.
"We still see her swimming almost every day in the summertime. We've seen her a lot in the last few weeks. She looks happy and healthy," Rue said.
What makes "Pinky" so unique is her coloring. Rue said her whole body is "100 percent pink--you know, like, the color of most dolphins bellies, but her whole body is pink." At first they all thought "Pinkie" was an albino dolphin, but after some research they don't necessarily think so because she'd appear more white rather than pink if that was the case.
Recently Rue said he witnessed "Pinky" mating, so he's curious to see if she's pregnant and if she'll be having a dolphin calf soon, and if so, what color will it be?
Over the years Rue said he's seen "Pinky" hundreds of times.
Photo by Calctsieu Charter Service; all rights reserved.
Photo by Calctsieu Charter Service; all rights reserved.
If you'd like to see more pictures of Pinky, click HERE.
Edtor's note: This dolphin reminds me of Angel, the albino dolphin who was captured off the coast of Taiji during a round up of over 250 dolphins; a superpod slaughter.
The last moments Angel felt at home; photo courtesy of DolphinProject
The last moments Angel felt at home; photo courtesy of DolphinProject
She now does tricks for food. Japanese fisherman claimed she cannot survive in the wild (with her mother and 200 other protective dolphins) so they chose to let her languish in this hell hole instead. Seems she would've of survived just fine with her wild pod. It's here where she will certainly die an early death from stress.
She has been entered into the breeding log by the Taiji Whale Museum where she "lives" with nobody she knows. Ric O'Barry released video last year showing Angel being chased and bullied by the other dolphins in small enclosures. Perhaps this is a breeding method in Japan?
Target: Vladimir Putin, President, and Sergey Donskoi, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment
Petition: Click here To Sign
Goal: Prevent the capture and abuse of endangered whales and dolphins in Russia.
An astounding number of dolphins and whales are killed for consumption or captured and sold into captivity despite worldwide efforts to stop this trade. There is a battle in the U.S. right now between the Georgia Aquarium and the federal government over the importation of 18 Russian beluga whales. Our federal government is taking a stand by refusing the import, and animal rights activist Pamela Anderson took a stand in the very place from where these beautiful whales come: Russia.
President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergey Donskoi afforded Anderson the opportunity to speak at the Eastern Russia Economic Forum in Vladivostok the first week of September. During the summit, Anderson implored upon the Russian government to become, “… a nation that recognizes the rights and ecological value of animals.” The heart of Anderson’s speech requested that the nation stop killing whales and dolphins and free dolphins currently in captivity.
Anderson took the issue a step further and called upon the Russian government to oppose trading dolphin and whale products by banning the transit of these items through Russian territory, including by air and sea. Anderson requested the Russians refuse transport of any endangered animal product through their land in an effort to continue to curb hunting and trade of whales, dolphins and other threatened and endangered species.
Hundreds of whales and tens of thousands of dolphins are killed annually, some of which killings are authorized by the Russian government. Join Pamela Anderson and ask that the Russian government end its whale and dolphin trade.
Dear President Putin and Minister Donskoi,
I am writing to stand in solidarity with Pamela Anderson and ask that you end your country’s whale and dolphin trade and free the animals you currently have in captivity. As Ms. Anderson accurately stated in her address during your Eastern Russian Economic Forum, these animals play a crucial role within our oceanic ecosystems and it’s time to recognize their value and worth.
I am also encouraging you to ban transport of any threatened or endangered animal products through your country. We must stand globally to stop the inhumane killing and senseless trade of precious animals and their products. Elephants and rhinos alone are poached each year for ivory, something that is illegal in most of the world. The animal populations are becoming extinct due to greed, and that includes many species of whales and dolphins.
Please honor what Ms. Anderson said during your annual summit. Our oceans need their precious whales and dolphins. Stop killing them for meat and animal products and stop capturing them for trade.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Russian Government
Last Tuesday, a 75-year-old American man named Ric O’Barry was arrested in Japan around 10 PM for driving without a passport. While paparazzi snapped photos, he was taken from his car to a local jail. After calls from the embassy and at least one Congressman, the man was quietly released 24 hours later.
O’Barry, formerly a dolphin trainer for the TV show Flipper, has been a target for Japanese police for years. Rocketed to fame by the Oscar-winning film The Cove in 2009, O’Barry has been trying to convince—or force—local fishermen to stop hunting dolphins for decades. But fishermen set out in boats this week once again, looking for dolphins. Has anything changed in the six years since The Cove came out?
The fishermen of Taiji call the hunt a local tradition. Using speed boats, they corral massive pods of tens or even hundreds of dolphins and push them into a secluded cove on the island, where they are either killed for meat or captured.
Over the past few decades, the hunt’s focus has shifted from butchering dead animals to capturing them alive so they can be trained and sold to aquariums and marine parks. According to the Oceanic Preservation Society, the organization that produced The Cove, just one live dolphin can fetch upwards of $200,000.
Now, critics say, the hunt has become part of a large commercial industry. Dolphins, whose complex emotional and cognitive abilities have been demonstrated by scientists, shouldn’t be used for meat or for entertainment, they argue.
The tide may be changing, however.
Last year in Taiji, due to declining demand for meat, increased awareness about the hunt, and pressure from activists, the number of dolphins slaughtered and taken captive hit a record low.
Japan’s country-wide dolphin catch is now down to less than 6,000 animals from 23,000 when the film was released, said The Cove’s director, Louie Psihoyos, in part because of the gruesome images of dying dolphins and blood-red water that splashed across film screens in the US and elsewhere.
Activists also pressured the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) to cut ties with its member group in Japan, the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums (JAZA), because it certified marine parks that bought captive dolphins from the hunt. WAZA suspended the Japanese branch last April. Shortly after, JAZA released a statement saying that it would officially ban its members from acquiring dolphins from the Taiji dolphin drive fisheries.
Another reason the dolphin hunt is losing supporters is the meat itself, which is widely known to be contaminated with dangerously high levels of mercury and PCBs. One 2010 government report found that Taiji’s 3,500 residents had mercury levels that were above the national average. The country’s Health Ministry has cautioned people about eating dolphin meat before, noting that many samples of dolphin meat in Japan have been found to exceed the safe limit for mercury levels—some as high as 5,000 times over.
Nevertheless, the hunting boats are still heading out. The Taiji Fishermen’s Union, which sets yearly quotas for the hunt, is allowing hunters to capture or slaughter a total of 1,873 cetaceans (whales and dolphins) during the 2015-2016 season. They can take 462 bottlenose dolphins, 450 striped dolphins, 400 pantropical spotted dolphins, 256 Risso’s dolphins, 134 Pacific white-sided dolphins, 101 pilot whales, and 70 false killer whales.
“I wish I could say that you make a movie, and the world changes the next day. But it takes a while for culture to catch up,” Psihoyos told Motherboard.
He and the Oceanic Preservation Society just recently bought the rights to release The Cove for the first time in Japan, where many citizens are unaware about the hunts in Taiji.
“Hopefully, they are just as horrified as western audiences have been,” he said. “Most people there don’t believe it. They just can’t believe the horror that goes on inside their own borders.”
Song Produced by Pat Aeby (Krokus, etc.).
All Video Footage for all Sunset Music videos was done using the GoPro Hero!
Thanks especially to the tireless and what is endless work of the people that are trying to stop all Dolphin Hunting and Capturing in every way, and thanks to any participants who please, if you want to be credited in any way, contact us now at artistdevelopment@sunsetrecordings.com. We will do it that minute.
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