Barbarian Cowards

(Artist credit:  Jim Warren)

Hot on the heels of The Cove winning this year's Oscar for Best Documentary, is a new TV reality docu-drama called the Dolphin Warriors.  What's that?  Well you've heard of the Whale Wars.  The Animal Planet is working in concert with the people from The Cove and filming them for episodes that are projected to begin airing on TV this summer or fall.   Keep an eye out for this one!  Anything that gets more people aware and active on this issue has my full support.

Have you seen Pirate for the Sea?  It is a two hour documentary that focuses on Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson.  It gives a brief history of his time with Greenpeace, how he came to form the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and the things he does around the globe to raise awareness and to get directly involved in saving marine mammals.  A lot of people associate him with saving the whales, but he's also very involved in preventing shark finning and in his ongoing battle with the Canadian government over their annual harp seal cull.

If you have not yet seen this, I highly recommend it.  Be forewarned, however, that there are some pretty awful and graphic scenes showing various marine mammals being slaughtered.   There was a scene showing a barbarian coward seal killer just standing over a helpless harp seal and clubbing it to death.   I'm not a violent person and I abhor violence, but I wanted nothing more, in that very moment, than to reach through the television screen with my own club and bash this coward's head in.  

That's exactly what they are - barbarian cowards.  Words do not do justice in describing the rage I feel in witnessing such horrific acts against our marine friends.  It shows a complete lack of respect for our environment, nature, fellow living beings, and more broadly, our very planet.  It also obviously shows an utter lack of regard for oneself to engage in such an evil and cruel act.  

How would people feel if a harpoon was shot at them while they were minding their own business in the ocean?  Or feeling a knife cutting off your arms akin to the shark finning and then being thrown back overboard - alive.   Or a club being repeatedly bashed against your skull until your last dying breath?  Or being herded into a cove that soon turns blood red as all your dolphin friends, and ultimately you, get slaughtered and bleed out to a slow and painful death?

If you're against the harp seal hunt, you should check out this site:  Harp Seals

Much like Japan defends it's barbaric killing of whales and attributes it to "culture," Canada does the same thing in defense of their cowardly bashing of seal pups.  Only public pressure from around the world and a severe economic loss will wake up the Canadian government.  

Just because there's a possibility there won't be a seal cull this year, doesn't mean the battle is won.  Please remain vigilante on this issue by directly contacting the Canadian PM.   If you are not aware of what this is all about or why the big deal over this, please check out About the Canadian Seal Hunt and read up.

Will Japan ever get their stubborn harpoons out of their asses and finally listen to reason?  Will they ever realize that killing whales for research is not only a bogus lie on their part, but is completely unnecessary in order to conduct said research?  New Zealand is taking a stand that killing whales for research is NOT needed and will be arguing their case at the IWC this June.  Go New Zealand!

Talk has died down quite a bit from the Sea World Orlando incident a couple weeks ago.  I guess a lot of people really just don't care.  If they did, they'd have started boycotting Sea World immediately and the parks would be either completely shut down by now or in danger of bankruptcy.  This is an interesting article:  How Can Sea World Manage Tragedy, Criticism While Maintaining Business Brand?

Excerpt:

SeaWorld executives, he said, “have no interest in creating an environment where animals are not happy and not safe. ... Yes, they are in swimming pools. There’s no question. They’re also in an environment where they are taken care of.”

Color me stupid, but that sounds like an oxymoron.  Putting a 12,000 pound Orca in a swimming pool and say "they are taken care of."   

Another excerpt:

University of Florida professor Robert W. Emerson said he sees no easy way for SeaWorld to alter dramatically its business model in the short term. It would be like McDonald’s or Wendy’s abandoning hamburgers and scrapping their menus because of health concerns about beef.

“It’s difficult to do that without conceding what they’ve done up until now has been wrong,” said Emerson, a legal-studies expert. “If that’s your product, it’s a little hard to go too far away from it without saying there is something wrong with your product.”

Wow.  Comparing live marine mammals being held captive in the tiniest minature replication of the ocean that is possible, to hamburger.  I must be dense.  I don't get it. 

Here are a couple of suggestions on changing their so-called business model.  

(1)  Release the orcas and dolphins to sanctuaries.  It may not be the vast ocean but it's certainly better than swimming pools.  If the mammals were once wild, they could possibly be re-introduced back into the wild over time.  If they were never wild (hence, Sea World might actually cease supporting the slaughtering and capturing of dolphins around the globe and being sold to the likes of Sea World for their greedy purposes) then take care of them in the sanctuaries.  Who foots the bill?  Sea World and their subsidaries.   They created this mess, they should pay for it.

(2)  Educate people about our marine mammals and marine environments via hologram performances, big screen productions (like IMAX Theatres,) eco-friendly whale/dolphin watching tours, sales of DVD's, books, and other related materials that promote education and awareness, etc etc.

Anyone have any other suggestions or ideas?  I'd love to hear 'em.

Another excerpt from the above article:

“One more incident like this and the brand really would be in trouble,” Connor said. “You don’t want to cross your fingers and hope it doesn’t happen again. You can’t afford to do that.”

Well golly gee whiz.  Wasn't one incident enough for people to wake the hell up and stop buying tickets to Sea World?  Guess not.   The executives at Sea World are still raking in the bucks and the public continues to help them get richer - at a far greater expense to these mammals and ultimately our planet, than they'll ever fathom. :: shaking my head sadly :: 

"We share the Earth not only with our fellow human beings, but with all other creatures." ~ Dalai Lama ~

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Blame the Whales

(Artist credit: Jeff Wilkie)

Seems to be the mantra of the Japan whalers and their government: "Blame the Whales."

For what? They, among other countries like Canada for example, blame marine wildlife for the "diminishing of fish stocks" all over the planet.

Uh, what? That's the most ridiculous BS I've ever heard.

In The Whale Warriors, this book by Peter Heller that I am reading, there is a lot documented in there about the damage Japan has done to the marine ecosystem. And Japan is not alone in the harm they have done that in many parts of the planet, may well be irreversible. The USA is no exception either. But I digress.

Here's an excerpt in the book. Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd was having one of his several conversations with Peter Heller and said:

"You know what the Japanese delegate Tadahiko Nakamura said to me at the 1997 IWC meeting in Monaco? He said he didn't care if all the whales died. He said his duty was to his family, his company, his country, and that it was his duty to harvest all the whales they could before they were all gone. 'Realize maximum profit from them before they go extinct' are the words he used."

Japan is the world's largest consumer of seafood. 40% of the protein from their diet comes from marine species. And with shrinking fish stocks and collapsing fisheries all over the planet, Japan is, of course, sensitive to criticism and anxious to place blame on the whales for the decline of fisheries.

Now imagine how this planet was millions of years ago. Imagine there was a time when there were 1.5 million humpback whales cruising the world's seas. Imagine when there were no engine sounds from boats and the water was so clear and krill and plankton were always abundant for these mammals.

For millions of years, whales have existed in these vast oceans, singing to one another songs that would span hundreds of miles through the water reaching other whales who would return their songs. It is well documented in scientific research that whales and dolphins call each other by name, have social structures akin to humans and their brains are also wired similarly to humans in that they can process thoughts and experience emotions running the spectrum of joy to grief.

"And they had done it all for millions of years and had swum the oceans in peace. They had left the sea unpolluted, mostly quiet, the reefs teeming; the shores, the mangroves rich, protective; the fish in their schooling numbers as prolific as the stars that wheeled above. They had loved the ocean, if love is a deep attention in which one does no harm. They had perceived it, attended the greens of the reefs and the blues of the deep and all its creatures and passed on, generation to generation. They had not turned on each other with wholesale vengeance and blood lust, or massacred another species off the face of the waters because they could.

They ocean they swam in now had changed. Old drift nets called ghost nets, thousands of miles of them, abandoned, drifted in every sea; the whales, all the species, could not detect them until it was too late, and then became tangled and thrashed and died by the thousands. Other fishing gear did the same - lines of lobster traps, long lines, abandoned seines. Ships, the sound of engines and props, turned the great currents into a cacophony through which the old distant whale songs were mangled and lost. Low-frequency active sonar now being used by the U.S. Navy, one of the loudest sound systems devised by man, emitted sonic booms that ruptured delicate hearing mechanisms, caused internal hemorrhage, and destroyed cetacean navigation systems so that whole pods washed up disoriented on beaches in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, bleeding from their ears. Overfishing dramatically depleted fish stocks and dug deeper and deeper down the food chain as top predators were wiped out, so that for cetaceans, food was harder and harder to find. Pollution concentrated toxins in their flesh to such a degree that many environmental organizations claim that the eating of whale or dolphin meat is patently unsafe."

So this planet, which was once pristine and teeming with healthy marine mammals all over, is now a cesspool of human greed and man made pollution. And countries like Japan want to blame the whales and dolphins for the lack of seafood they can hunt? Give me a freakin' break.

Japan blames the whales. Canada blames the harp seals. United States doesn't care as long as the Navy can improve upon and maximize the potential for their sonar capabilities. Because, ya know, we gotta protect ourselves from those terrorists in other countries.

Has anyone in these countries ever been honest enough to assess themselves as the terrorists?

If only humanity would learn that if we take care of our planet and every single living being in and out of the sea, then the planet will take care of us. Treat it like crap, and it'll give crap right back.

We don't have the right to complain about how dirty our planet is and how much trash we find in the ocean when we are the very culprits ourselves. We don't have the right to complain about how our natural resources are dwindling when our greed over the years has resulted in pollution, ravaged forests, and poisoned oceans.

People need to wake the hell up. Life is not about serving ourselves. We do so at our own peril. We must take care of this planet and understand that our very ecosystem the world over is in peril. And unless we at least begin to try to make up for all the crap we've pulled on Planet Earth, we too shall perish and have no one to blame but ourselves.

Mahalo,

Dolphin

Sea Shepherd vs Greenpeace

There's a good article over at Sea Shepherd about animal rights activist, Allison Lance. The article discusses how she came to be an activist and her involvement with the Sea Shepherd organization.

One thing she said: "We go out and we find a long (hooked) line, it could be 100 miles (160 km) and (the net) catches everything: there's swordfish, there's marlin, there's albatross," she says. "And then sharks. Sharks are very important to our ecosystem and we are losing them at a great rate, just for shark fin soup. They take the shark, cut the fin off and throw the body back still alive. Imagine the pain."

How does this sort of cruelty serve a "scientific purpose," according to Japan?

Read more here: Making a difference

In further news on the whale hunt news of late, the good folks at Sea Shepherd have publicly spoken out about wanting to work in communion with the folks at Greenpeace. Both organizations have stated they are on their way out to the Antarctic waters to meet the Japan whaling fleets and to intervene on Japan's plans to kill more whales.

Sea Shepherd has never had a violent interaction with anyone on their issues. They believe in peaceful, non-violent means of intervening.

Greenpeace, on the other hand, has and continues to, unfortunately, be controversial in their methods.

Ultimately, I admire what both organizations are trying to do here and I pray for everyone's safety and that no one gets hurt, even the Japan whalers. And finally, I hope to God that there is minimal, if any, killing of any whales out there in the waters.

In other related Sea Shepherd news, the founder and President Paul Watson, wrote an interesting commentary yesterday about the Makah tribe, located at Cape Flattery, Washington.

Here is an excerpt:

And now five extremely inept members of the tribe, men who reportedly were considered the most competent and skilled modern whalers of their people have together displayed an exhibition of gross dishonor, unbelievable disrespect and colossal incompetence with their cruel and tragic murder of a defenseless gray whale.

Read more here: Five Incompetent Makah Make a Mockery of Traditional Whaling

One last thing I'd like to get responses on.

Is it possible for someone who is not a vegetarian, to be respected as an animal / wildlife rights activist? Why or why not?

Post your thoughts please. As long as there is no hate and no vulgar language, I will publish all comments.

Mahalo,

Dolphin