Taiji
Today is the beginning of the six-month-long annual massacre of dolphins, pilot whales, and anything else that gets caught in the driving hunt headed by fishermen at Taiji, Japan. The animals are all herded into a cove where they are basically caged until the fishermen are ready for the slaughter. The dolphins deemed worthy enough to be sold to marine aquariums around the world are spared and sold for as high as $150,000 per dolphin. The unworthy rest are speared, clubbed, knifed, spiked with sharp objects in the blow hole or the spine, and whatever other inhumane and violent way the fishermen can come up with; the high mercury-laden meat from these animals will be sold in Tokyo and other places in Japan. It has been said that the dolphin meat for sale in Tokyo fish markets is labeled as another fish so unsuspecting buyers have no idea they are eating toxic fish.
Witnesses to the massacre have said they can hear the dolphins screaming in the blood-filled cove and that some of the dolphins smash themselves against the jagged cove rocks in an effort to escape. Other witnesses have said they have seen still-alive but mortally wounded dolphins piled on top of one another at the shoreline while the fishermen stomp on them, smoking and laughing. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dolphins are killed every year like this and the Japanese will not stop it, no matter the protests from around the world. It's their custom, and that's the way it is (which is the same thought process for the annual whale slaughter in Iceland, where the children get the day off from school so they can play on the dying whales).
This is the 21st century. Customs from the barbaric past can be changed or left behind. We have sent a man to the moon, we have watches that can tell us how many heartbeats we experience when we sleep, we have cars that can back up for us or tell us there is another vehicle in the next lane, we have the Internet that can give us millions of possible answers to our question in a millisecond. Is it possible that we, as human beings, can reach into our very core, our very spirit, and see a different way of living, of getting what we want, so we can create a world of peace and prosperity, instead of a world where war, greed, and violence make us bleed like the Taiji dolphins tortured in the blood-red waters of the cove?
Witnesses to the massacre have said they can hear the dolphins screaming in the blood-filled cove and that some of the dolphins smash themselves against the jagged cove rocks in an effort to escape. Other witnesses have said they have seen still-alive but mortally wounded dolphins piled on top of one another at the shoreline while the fishermen stomp on them, smoking and laughing. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dolphins are killed every year like this and the Japanese will not stop it, no matter the protests from around the world. It's their custom, and that's the way it is (which is the same thought process for the annual whale slaughter in Iceland, where the children get the day off from school so they can play on the dying whales).
This is the 21st century. Customs from the barbaric past can be changed or left behind. We have sent a man to the moon, we have watches that can tell us how many heartbeats we experience when we sleep, we have cars that can back up for us or tell us there is another vehicle in the next lane, we have the Internet that can give us millions of possible answers to our question in a millisecond. Is it possible that we, as human beings, can reach into our very core, our very spirit, and see a different way of living, of getting what we want, so we can create a world of peace and prosperity, instead of a world where war, greed, and violence make us bleed like the Taiji dolphins tortured in the blood-red waters of the cove?
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