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Joining forces
with animal protection organizations from around the world and millions
of concerned citizens, The Humane Society of Canada (HSC) is adding its
voice to the demand for an end to the annual slaughter of over 20,000
dolphins in Japanese drive fisheries, says Al Hickey, the animal
charity’s Western Regional Director. The global protest called Japan
Dolphin Day is being spearheaded by One Voice, Earth Island Institute
and the Elsa Nature Conservancy.
“From October through April,
Japanese fishermen, engage in the largest slaughter of dolphins
anywhere on earth. The dolphins are then processed and used for food
and fertilizer. Japan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world,
and does not need to engage in this brutal sadistic practice,” says
Hickey.
Every year in Japan, upwards of 20,000 thousand
dolphins, whales and porpoises are rounded up in their off-shore family
pods and driven towards shallow bays where the entire social unit is
butchered, including young calves.
Travelling in small motor
boats, Japanese fishermen locate and surround a pod of dolphins, and
using the sound of their engines and banging pipes under water, drive
the terrified marine mammals towards shallow water, where they are
stabbed and beaten using knives and other implements. Thousands more
are killed by hand-held harpoons farther out offshore. Due to the fact
that dolphins are not easy to control, and their anatomy prevents an
immediate kill, these drive fisheries are extremely cruel and bloody.
Viewers should be warmed that the video footage courtesy of One Voice
found here of this barbaric spectacle is graphic and explicit.
Drive
fisheries, as a secondary purpose, also supply wild individuals for
display in aquaria and zoos around the world. Far from saving dolphins
from being killed, when companies or organisations buy dolphins from
drive fishermen, they actually promote the continuation of this
activity. The fishermen select unharmed individuals to be sold and kill
all of the others.
“These drive fisheries, such as the one that
takes place annually in Taiji Bay, are far from being economically
sustainable; they are in fact heavily subsidized by their local Fishing
Cooperatives and the Aquarium Industry, which spare a very small number
of dolphins so that they can be sold to various amusement parks and
spend the rest of their lives in squalid concrete tanks, performing
tricks and being constantly touched by tourists” says HSC Executive
Director, Michael O’Sullivan. A study funded by The Humane Society of
Canada found that whales and dolphins live shorter lives in captivity
then when left alone to swim free with their family pods in the ocean
where they belong.
Keeping dolphins and other cetaceans in
captivity only reinforces the misguided notion that we can only
understand nature by dominating it and that humans are somehow above
nature rather than being a part of it, says the animal charity.
Experts
say that these drive fisheries are also not biologically sustainable,
the annual killing of approximately 20,000 dolphins and porpoises is
poorly regulated, and the quotas are not based on any scientific data.
Indeed, as there is little knowledge and data of how many dolphins and
whales there are in the waters off the coast of Japan – it is
impossible to declare that these hunts are sustainable in any way.
There
is much scientific research being conducted currently, including
POLLUTION 2000+ an international, interdisciplinary program agreed upon
by the International Whaling Commission during the 1999 Annual meeting
in Grenada, to determine the trends of chemical pollutants in cetacean
tissues. The results show that dolphin and whale meat is heavily
contaminated with PCBs, heavy metals, dioxins and other toxic
materials, in concentrations exceeding the contamination limits set for
human consumption. However, despite these risks, the Japanese
government continues to encourage its citizens to eat these products,
which are often mislabelled.
Recently two Taiji Councilmen broke their silence calling dolphin meat
"toxic waste" and urging their fellow council members to end serving
dolphin meat as part of the school lunch program following the results
of their own independent tests on dolphin meat which showed high levels
of mercury. In addition, last December, following tests on
contamination levels in dolphin meat theOkuwa Supermarket Corporation banned the sale of dolphin meat at their supermarket chains.
“Instead of subsidizing an
antiquated, cruel and unsustainable hunt, the Japanese government
should support the lucrative whale watching industry – an activity
which is becoming increasingly popular in Japan, but will only suffer
with the continued practice of these drive fisheries,” says O’Sullivan.
Some
of the fishermen claim that the dolphins compete with them for fish,
and this is the reason for killing them, says O’Sullivan. “However,
nothing could be further from the truth. The global decline in
fisheries is because of human greed and indifference – a tragic tale of
hook, line and extinction,” he says.
More than 200 major
commercial fisheries around the world are in a downward spiral. Even
the World Bank and the World Trade Organization agree that the global
fishing industry is heavily overly subsidized with tax dollars in the
amount of $ 30 billion. The United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization reports that there is a global overfishing crisis with 52%
of stocks fully exploited and a further 24% of stocks depleted due to
overexploitation. Each year commercial fishing fleets throw away 60
billion pounds of unwanted fish which is about 25% of the total global
catch. There are simply too many vessels, catching too many fish, using
too many destructive methods.
“In our opinion, these Japanese
fishermen are environmental outlaws, and animal protection groups in
that country have asked for our help in demanding that the Japanese
Government ban this annual slaughter which each year destroys the
family pods of more than 20,000 of these highly intelligent social
mammals,” says O’Sullivan.
The Humane Society of Canada is urging people to speak out against the Japanese Dolphin slaughter, please send your letters to:
His Excellency Tsuneo Nishida
Ambassador
Embassy of Japan
255 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, ON K1N 9E6
Fax: (613) 241-2232
CONTACT: Al Hickey or Michael O'Sullivan by toll free 1-800-641-KIND or Michael on his cell phone (416) 876-9685 or at www.humanesociety.com.
A registered
charity, The Humane Society of Canada depends entirely on donations to
support our programs to help animals and the environment. All donations
are gratefully acknowledged with a receipt for income tax purposes. If
you would like to support our campaign to protect animals and the
earth, please make a donation here. Because when it comes to fighting cruelty, we don’t give up. Ever.
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