Taiji, the Japanese city infamous for the slaughter of dolphins, will open a large marine park within 5 years, where visitors can swim or kayak with 50-100 in captivity. The goal is clear: to increase revenue for this fishing town that still continues to justify dolphin hunting as something 'cultural'.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Taiji, the Japanese city notorious for the slaughter of dolphins, will open within 5 years a large marine park, where visitors can swim or kayak with 50-100 in captivity. The goal is clear: to increase revenue for this fishing town that still continues to justify dolphin hunting as something 'cultural'.
So as tourists flock to this impressive new 28-hectare marine sanctuary, dolphins and small whales will continue to be slaughtered just around the corner in Hatakejiri Bay, infamously known as 'The Cove'. Government official Masaki Wada put it bluntly: far from having succumbed to pressure from environmentalists who want to end an annual hunt that turns the waters red with blood, the project is aimed precisely at helping to support this abject practice.
“We already use dolphins and small whales as a source of tourism in the bay where dolphin hunting takes place. In the summer swimmers can watch the mammals being released in a dedicated one and we now plan to do so on a larger scale. It is part of the long-term plan to make the whole city of Taiji a park, where you can enjoy the vision of marine mammals, tasting various marine products, including whales and dolphin meat ", explains Masaki Wada.
“The whole project is based on the concept that you can exploit dolphins and whales freely as their resource, but mammals do not belong to Taiji. Marine mammals migrate across oceans and international public opinion now knows that wildlife should live freely. The will only ignite more protests about dolphin hunting. If they want to have more tourists, they can for example show the beautiful whaling ships used in ancient times, they would show their tradition without causing more controversy ", countered Nanami Kurasawa, general secretary of the local environmental association IKAN, Iruka & Kujira (dolphins and whales) Action Network.
Also the Cove Guardian Melissa Sehgal he replies, recalling the numbers and methods of the slaughter that every go on stage in Taiji, from the pages of his own new blog for the Huffington Post UK: “These dolphins and whales will be pushed, hunted and snatched from their mothers, taken captive and fed dead fish in exchange for performing daily training exercises. A trained dolphin can sell for up to $ 150,000 -200,000. Even though it is illegal in the United States to import a wild dolphin, many countries around the world continue to buy their dolphins from Taiji for marine parks, dolphinariums and dolphin swimming programs, even knowing their origin. " The remaining members, the unwanted and less valuable ones, will be killed.
Dolphin trainers claim to love them, but in Taiji they go hand-in-hand with those dolphins catch and slaughter them for human consumption. The mayor of Taiji, Kazutaka Sangen, continues to argue that the "pithing method" for slaughtering is completely humane, painless and fast, yet all the evidence points to the contrary. Basically, dolphins and whales are pushed into the shallow water in order to render them helpless. A metal bar is struck on their spine to paralyze them. To hide the blood, a wooden plug is inserted into the open wound. In this way, the dolphins are often still conscious as they are transported to the slaughterhouse.
On 6 October 2013, after being held captive in extreme weather conditions for more than two days, 16 pilot whales were shot down. They are the latest victims of the bay of death, the next site of a marine park with dolphin meat on the menu.
TO SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MARINE PARK CLICK HERE
Roberta Ragni
READ also:
- Taiji 2013: chosen the first 6 dolphins. Here's what dolphinaria don't want us to know (photo)
- The Cove - The bay where dolphins die (full MOVIE)
