I’d also be awfully careful of equating the slaughter of dolphins in a less-than-humane manner with the intentionally brutal, sadistic, and torturing practices of the Nazis at Auschwitz.

All of that said, yes, I agree that one has to find out why those who hunt dolphins do so. Berating, belittling, and lambasting are not effective ways of changing behavior.

I agree with DeOrio, it is just cowardly to do such a thing and not actually kill the animal quick and swift.

Its incredible how much the human mind can take. I do not get squimish at this video, yet I believe it is disgusting and we (as in ‘humans’) should be able to use our adapted minds to put an end to such abuses of animal rights.

How can a Japanese person watch a dolphin die like that? Then again, a question of the same frame of mind pops up. “How can an SS soldier from Hitler’s Polish camp Auschwitz-Birkenau throw young children and babies into the air to use as target practice?”.

This is not a question of stopping them on a minimal scale, but finding out wat drives the Japanese to such ferocious killing. First you must understand their point of view, their TRUTHFUL point of view before trying to solve the problem.

~Babylon-Rising~ ~Shricket~ ~Simone~

My daughter and I just finished this fantastic book from the Gaia Girls Book Series. We had no idea this happens. Killing of the dolphins horrified us.

Gaia Girls Way of Water is a FANTASTIC book that touched us deeply and we are now going to work hard to STOP this action. We took action on your site.

Have you guys heard of the books or the author? We are HUGE fans of the series and wanted to let you know we came to your site because of this thoughtful book series. These book feature Girl ECO heroes. Book one deals with earth girl and factory faring, book two, deals with the Water Gaia Girl and the horrible dolphin hunts.

I would recommend you guys featuring the author and the book series. I think if we get kids as involved as my daughter is now, they can change the world!

Publisher
www.chelseagreen.com

Gaia Girls by Lee Welles.
www.gaiagirls.com

Mary and Rachel Brown

The reason I asked about where it happens is because I couldn’t make full sense from the numerous videos in floating around the internet. Here is one that I think might have been what Phoenix’s cut originated from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvlOqgP9gIU&mode=related&search=

Just from browsing around you can see that this is getting a lot of blogosphere attention for one, but also coverage, as there does exist some footage that was clearly taken separately. Weather this is from another year, another month, or another perspective I cannot say. From what I’m hearing, I think that it is not another town. I’m currently under the impression that this is done once a year in the town of Taiji.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98RMmGtGpzU&mode=related&search=

I haven’t found much else that isn’t just a cut of either one of these for the sole purpose of showing more dolphin blood. I really don’t know what was the chicken and what was the egg, but of course the important thing is to shed light on what is happening.

Again, as far as I’m concerned, eat all the dolphin you want: but the animals should be killed in a humane manner. The criticism is not whether or not they are eaten, but how they are killed.

Regarding this statement, I can’t say I’m of the same opinion. I see little room for altering the process to make it more humane in all honesty. I think the most important issues to stress to the Japanese is that they can sell the meat labeled as something else and that supposedly aquariums are supporting this activity. Simple consumer awareness of what meat they’re eating would lessen economic incentive to do this and I would think publicity regarding the dolphin captures associated with this practice could cause support to be withdrawn from aquariums. If people want to enjoy their dolphin meat then someone’s got to catch and butcher them, that’s one issue. If dolphin hunting really is economically infeasible as DeOrio says, then it seems like it should be a no-brainer for society to shut this down.

Someone also brought an interesting point that the Japanese don’t want to eat dolphins for the reasons we think of. I’ve been often surprised by the Japanese take on preparation of food. One time I went to a ‘cooking party’ with some friends in Tokyo, got a squid, cleaned it, cut it, threw it on the frying pan and squirted some soy sauce in there. The Japanese kids were so excited like “my mom taught me how to cook this!” and the westerners were about to throw up. I think that the idea of eating animals is just not as taboo in their minds. In the US, we have to have stuff processed and pulverized. Anything that clearly resembles some part of an animal is typically gawked at, but not so in Japan. Anyway, I’ve gotten far off track.

I just wanted to bring attention to the aquarium issue among others. Maybe I’ll write a Wikipedia article about it or something.

Japanese people, however, are likely to perceive the criticism on dolphin eating as racism against Asian.

I don’t see what makes you think Japanese people would conflate eating dolphin as a race issue. The two issues are entirely unrelated, as I’ve confirmed in conversations with Japanese co-workers, colleages and family members today.

Again, as far as I’m concerned, eat all the dolphin you want: but the animals should be killed in a humane manner. The criticism is not whether or not they are eaten, but how they are killed.

But I want to see Joaquin Phoenix do the same video on beef, pork, and other fish. It would be interesting and maybe less biased. :0)… Just something to think about.

So, then why don’t you get that video? He has made videos denouncing the beef and pork industries. He’s a very active PETA member with strong views.

Found on Google.

Thanks for your comment. I should clarify what I meant by my comment about Joaquin Phoenix’s ’small towns acrosss Japan’ line. You wrote:

I must admit though, I find your comment that it doesn’t take place in small towns interesting.

I agree with the conclusion you came to in that paragraph. It does not happen often. Actually, this particular style of dolphin hunt, as far as I know, happens in this one particular small town, once a year.

Thus, I feel it is irresponsible of Mr Phoenix to refer to ’small towns across Japan.’ We often see this sort of sad slandering of the Japanese, which I don’t like to see because it’s inaccurate and detracts from the force of the argument behind the video.

Do the people here want to ban fishing? Or even that, ban eating fish for food?

No, not at all. As I’ve said in my previous comments, I don’t care what anyone eats. That’s none of my business.

But, all I ask is that the animal be killed in a humane manner. Slitting its throat and letting it bleed out while convulsing is cruel and inhumane. I don’t care if it’s a dolphin, a pig or a chicken. Human beings have the technology to do better. Let’s put that technology to work.

Re: 1. Yes.
2. Could be. My general impression is that people consider whales to be cute, too. I don’t think many people are thinking about what real animals look like. It’s more of an image in the mind. I think that’s true everywhere, not only in Japan.

As far as I know, there’s not much opposition to the idea of eating dolphin per se.
I would guess that it’s just not as widely considered a food stuff, so it’s marked to sell better. More of a “How would I serve that?” issue than an “I won’t eat that” issue.

As for the small towns across Japan thing, the objection Ken and I have is to the “across Japan” part - the hunt occurs almost entirely in the town in the video and the town of Taiji.

Tsukiji does sell seafood from Japanese waters, but they are distressed and largely fished out. Most of what you see there comes from far afield and most larger fish in Japan comes from very far from Japan. Tuna, for instance, primarily comes from the Indian Ocean.

I agree with you on the cognition thing. I’d add a human self-interest angle as well. It’s bad for us when a large mammal species goes extinct. There aren’t many dolphins. There are loads of cows and pigs.