Dolphin Slaughter in Taiji, Japan: The Blood Money

Local fishermen are expected to slaughter about 2,000 of the estimated 20,000 dolphins that will be killed in Japanese coastal waters between now and April.

The hunters bang on metal poles to drive pods of dolphins into secluded coves, where they are speared and hacked to death. The few that survive are sold to aquariums in Japan, Europe and the US.

Despite international condemnation of the culls, the people of Taiji, where coastal whaling is said to have been practised for 400 years, claim the local economy would collapse if coastal whaling and dolphin hunting were banned.

What Happens Behind Barbed Wire

What really happens in Taiji?

This is an actual photograph taken during the dolphin slaughter season in Taiji. The water literally turns red in this hidden cove because of the numerous dolphins they kill every time.

Animals Have Rights -- Wait, What?

• Animals are on the same biological continuum according to Darwin so why are they not on the same moral continuum?
  
• The fact that animals have the capacity to suffer distinguishes them to be on the same plane as we are in regards to ethical treatment.
  
• We cannot hide behind the fact that we do not know for sure if animals suffer.
  
• The dolphins in Taiji are being harpooned and killed for no good reason. This should not be considered acceptable.
• It is harder to convince humans that they are exhibiting a type of discrimination when they say that animals do not have the same rights to life as humans do but that is because our philosophical background has programmed us to dismiss the fact that animals have feelings and psychological lives too, and should not be instruments to human endeavors.

Mercury Contamination: It Goes Further Then You Think

THE EFFECTS OF MERCURY INCLUDE:

• headaches
• cough
• chest pain
• difficulty breathing
• soreness of the mouth
• loss of teeth
• nausea
• diarrhea
• may lead to permanent lung scarring
• high exposure to mercury can damage your kidneys

SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT DOLPHIN MEAT

A study by two Japanese universities found that residents of Taiji, a whaling town on the Pacific coast, who frequently ate the meat of pilot whale - a member of the dolphin family - have mercury levels 10 times the national average.

The hair of three tested residents contained quantities of mercury higher than 50 parts per million, a level that can lead to neurological problems.

The average mercury level among the men was 21.6ppm, and 11.9ppm among women - both about 10 times the national average. The three men with dangerously high levels of mercury said they ate pilot whale meat more than once a month.

Mercury levels halved among people who stopped eating the meat for two months.

Last year a study of dolphin meat served in school lunches in the Taiji area revealed mercury levels 10 to 16 times higher than the health ministry's accepted level of 0.4ppm.

Dolphin Slaughter: The Ugly Truth

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How Do We Connect?

• The issues of pesticide use, water pollution, and dolphin slaughter in Taiji are inherently connected to the use of chemicals in water.

• The actions needed to reverse the negative effects of pesticides; water contamination and dolphin slaughter are time sensitive. If actions are not to be taken soon, our environment will suffer the degradation of water resources.

• The connection between water pollution and pesticides is a substantial one in that pesticides contamination contributes to water pollution water bodies (oceans, lakes, streams, etc)

• In the legislation aspect of our issues, laws have been put in place offering solutions to water pollution and pesticides, such as regulation the pesticides that are in the food we eat every day as well as regulation of pollutants in surface water.
  
• This leads to a deadly chain that organisms in the oceans are living in an environment polluted with chemicals, which in turn are the food of bigger mammals such as dolphins. Since the dolphins are eating organisms that are contaminated with chemicals, their mercury content increases which leads to adverse consequences to the Japanese people who consume dolphin meat.(BIODEGRADATION)

Different Issues, Different Focus

Despite these similarities, pesticides affect much more than water pollution. There are a lot of viable options currently that we could be using instead of pesticides.

Water pollution encompasses much many more contaminants than pesticides do such as the pollutants found in oil spills.

With the dolphin slaughter that occurs in Taiji, a significant portion of the issue revolves around animal welfare and inhumane killing practices, which does not directly correlate to the effects of pesticides and the consequences of water pollution.