Save the Dolphins...

Saturday, May 29, In the year of our Lord 2010

My House, Caronport Saskatchewan

Returned from the St. Pierre's, 11:51 PM

Weather = cold, wet, dreary

The Cove. It's a documentary.

I didn't want to see it, but everyone was going to watch it and I needed to meet my basic social needs. It was explained to me that this documentary covered the continual dolphin slaughter at Taiji in Japan. I didn't want to see it because moral outrage fizzles into impotence, helplessness, and despair unless of course it is just forgotten shortly thereafter. Either option is shameful.

I did watch it. I applied all my critical thinking and rationalist thought determined not to be swayed by incomplete logic, special pleading, cute animals being killed, and blood in the water. If I was going to watch this documentary I was going to test it and see how and where they twist the truth to their ends.

My conclusion by the end of the film was indeed moral outrage. I tried as hard as possible to be critical of this film, but it was solid. I was going to try and give a general overview, but it would probably be better if you just watched it yourself. One of the major points that constantly poked at me was that the guy behind the documentary was the same guy who did Flipper! He started the whole dolphin craze, he knows about dolphins inside and out, and now he has dedicated his life to destroying what he created...

My issue wasn't so much the method of rounding up and slaughtering the dolphins which is quite graphic and inhumane (and literally turns the ocean red). My issue was the reasons behind it.

1. Hundreds of Thousands of dollars for each dolphin that gets bought by aquariums like Sea World. I didn't think this was an issue until I understood how dolphins work. The sonar on a dolphin is far more advanced than top secret experimental military sonar, they are super sensitive to sounds. They are put in a concrete tub surrounded by screaming clapping tourists and they die of depression.

2. Maybe six hundred dollars for a dolphin that gets turned into food, except nobody eats dolphin. The meat is labeled as other things and put with other types of meat just so that it can sell. Furthermore (and this is a point that I want to verify for myself) it has 20x the amount of mercury recommended by international seafood health groups. It has happened before at another coastal town in Japan where the citizens got mercury poisoning. There is no reason to eat this food, it isn't as good as other seafood and it's very toxic.

3. Culture. The people of Taiji say that we Westerners do not understand, it is their culture! Well, nobody else in Japan eats dolphin, or knows about dolphin hunting. Perhaps it is only a local culture thing. But what local culture needs 23000 dolphins a year?

4. National Pride. They make a point of showing how the dolphin and whale hunt is part of resisting the world and saying "no, you have taken away this and that thing, but you will not take away the whale hunt!" and then killing all the whales they can get their hands on.

5. Pest Control. The Japanese authorities claim that dolphins eat too many of the fish and should be brought under control. The response of this film from several well to do marine experts is that this is biological nonsense. (worth looking into thouugh)

Now there are some things to consider here. If Taiji looses the dolphin hunt, it probably looses its only real source of income. There is a market for dolphin... even if its to package it in such a way that nobody knows that it is dolphin. But the only reasons for this market are bad reasons which leaves me perplexed...

Then there's the issue where dolphins are considered to be self-aware and also aware of humans. I am not about the quasi-mystical oneness of the universe or the spirituality of man and beast. I believe that God created man in his image and that humans alone have a spirit and a soul. However, I have heard so many stories, and seen things in this documentary, that makes me think that maybe dolphins are a different category of animal. The testimony of divers and surfers who experience a sort of connection and communication with a dolphin. Testimonies of people who were about to be attacked by a shark when a dolphin rams the shark to drive it away. At this point I like to think that God gave the dolphin a mandate at creation. He may have said to the dolphin "I am making you very intelligent for a purpose, see these strange creatures, they are the representation of me, they are my image, you are to watch out for them when they are in the water." Then there are stories of researchers and dolphin trainers utterly amazed when the dolphins understand communications and communicate back.

So what do we make of this? I think that if there is no need to eat the dolphins (which there isn't) then they ought to be respected as a particularly self-aware creature unlike a chicken or a cow. In North America we respect dogs in this way, you know, man's best friend, that faithful and empathetic companion. Furthermore the meat is toxic and the unfettered slaughter of any creature can only do harm in the long run. I see no real reason (except for Japanese selfish pride) for this to continue.

There was a scene where it showed the 'save the whales' protesters. I was both amazed and aghast at how much conviction and passion they had. It was both inspiring and lame. I don't see protests like this, it seems like a different world. Perhaps my culture has hardwired me to not make a disturbance and not do anything. What to do about that now? Hmm...