Dolphin Holocaust

I have just watched The Cove. It's a documentary about a fishing town in Japan, Taiji, and the 23,000 dolphins - old, young, male, female - that they trap and slaughter every year.

Let me give you a small taste of the event 'Once trapped inside the cove, the fishermen kill the dolphins, slashing their throats with knives or stabbing them with spears. The water turns red with their blood, and the air fills with their screams'

Anyone involved with the genocide will deny it happens; it is cruel; or that it is grounded in old fashioned greed. Let me refute those denials with a few facts:

* A dolphin trapped and sold to a 'Dolphin Show' type amusement park by the Taiji fishermen will fetch up to 150,000 US Dollars;
* The dolphins are herded behind the nets by boats which create noise by immersing metal pipes in the water and banging them with hammers, causing maximum stress and confusion for the dolphins;
* A few dolphins are picked at random and injured, as they are herded, so that the family group will not leave the area. Dolphins stay with the family and friends they love;
* The dolphins which are not chosen and sold, after trapping, are herded into a cove which cannot be seen by the public and slaughtered with knives and spears. They are hacked to death. They die slowly;
*The water exiting the cove literally runs red with the blood of the murdered dolphins;
*Mother dolphins are separated from their babies. It's a toss up which will watch the other be hacked to death first.

Angry yet? Want more facts? Have a look at the Save Japan Dolphins site here.

Watch the following clip from the documentary The Cove. It starts twice. Stay with it - but don't watch it alone. There are no special effects. It's filmed as it happened. It's going to tear you to pieces.

Ready to do something about this yet? No? Have a look at more pictures of the slaughter and information from the organisation Sea Shepherd here.

So, tell me, what will you do to stop members of our own species attacking and murdering members of another intelligent species? Sign the petition to Dr Gerald Dick, Executive Director of The World ssociation of Zoos and Aquairiums at Care2. Sign the petition to President Obama, Vice President Biden and Ichiro Fujisaki (The Japanese Ambasador to the US) here. Add a Stop Taiji Dolphin Murder twibbon to your Facebook or Twitter profiles by going here. Join the organisations whose web pages you have just visited. DM me in Twitter and ask for my email address. Help me set up a group of people who will be a part of stopping this. Send the link to this post to as many people as you can - post it on your Facebook page; Tweet it once a day in Twitter; text it to your entire address book.

Don't just be shocked and revolted. Don't just skip a meal because this has upset you. Please. Get angry and start saving lives!