ONE VOICE, a leading French animal rights organization,
exposes the scandalous connection between the international dolphin
captivity industry and the Japanese dolphin slaughter:
The so-called drive fisheries take place in several
Japanese coastal fishing communities from October until April each year.
The dolphin hunt -- a practice that has been going on for 400 years with
little opposition -- is extremely brutal: Whalers take their boats out to
deep water where the dolphins migrate. When they locate a pod of dolphins,
they lower stainless steel poles into the water and beat the poles with
hammers. The noise creates a wall of sound underwater and sets the
dolphins into a state of total panic, which enables the whalers to drive
the dolphins into a lagoon. Once trapped in the lagoon, the dolphins are
doomed: The whalers force them into shallow water and, driving sharp
fishermen's hooks into the dolphins' bodies and stabbing them with butcher
knives, they bleed the animals to death. The dolphins take several minutes
to die. As the water turns red with blood, they thrash about in pain,
emitting loud whistles and cries.
"This is the largest dolphin slaughter in the world, and
the cruelest thing that I have ever witnessed in my 40 years of working
with dolphins" says Richard O'Barry, ONE VOICE Marine Mammal Specialist
and former trainer of the TV-star Flipper. O'Barry and his Danish wife
Helene, Field Correspondent for ONE VOICE, were in Taiji Japan to document
the dolphin slaughter. "The public will be shocked to learn that the
inhumane and brutal slaughter of dolphins in Japan is supported by the
dolphin captivity industry," says Helene. The ONE VOICE team documented
the capture of more than 200 bottlenose dolphins in Taiji. Several of the
dolphins were selected by dolphin trainers to be sold alive to
dolphinariums. Our team reports that about 50 dolphin trainers gathered in
Taiji to select the best looking of the captured dolphins, allowing the
rejects to be slaughtered by the whalers. The capture and selection
process was appallingly violent. Panic-stricken dolphins were dragged
ashore with ropes. Beached animals accidentally beat each other up in the
frenzy as they tried to get back into the water. Mothers and babies were
separated by force. The dolphin trainers simply stood by and watched as
some of the dolphins, in an effort to escape, got entangled in the capture
nets and, unable to reach the surface to breathe, suffocated. Some of
these trainers are members of the International Marine Animal Trainers
Association (IMATA). ONE VOICE has video footage showing two westerners at
"Dolphin Base" in Taiji, the company that brokers dolphins from the drives
to various dolphinariums.
Historically, the capture of dolphins has been highly
secretive and rarely photographed, and for decades the multi-billion
dollar dolphin captivity industry has claimed that they are capturing and
displaying dolphins so that they can educate the public to the necessity
of protecting dolphins in nature. But, in reality, the Japanese dolphin
slaughter and the use of dolphins for public display are strongly
connected. The whalers and dolphin trainers, working side by side to
exploit the dolphins in the most cruel manner imaginable, have a symbiotic
relationship. The evidence obtained by ONE VOICE is compelling and
irrefutable. "If the dolphin captivity industry was not fueling the
dolphin slaughter by buying dolphins from the Japanese dolphin drives, the
dolphin slaughter would have a very hard time surviving," says Muriel
Arnal, ONE VOICE Founder/Director.
ONE VOICE is hereby calling on captive dolphin facilities
worldwide to change their policy and stop supporting and participating in
the inhumane practice of the Japanese dolphin drives.
For more information and video documentation please
contact:
Muriel Arnal ONE VOICE
23 rue Chanoine Poupard 44300 Nantes - France
Tél. 02 51 83 18 10
Fax 02 51 83 18 18
www.onevoice-ear.org
Email: muriel.arnal@worldonline.fr
Richard O'Barry
Marine Mammal Specialist
ONE VOICE (France)
7511 SW 59th Place
Miami, Florida 33143 USA
Phone/Fax: 305-668 1619
E-mail: ricobarry@bellsouth.net
www.onevoice-ear.org
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