Introduction
For years, the mankind has been astonished by majestic creatures like the dolphins. We wow at their elegance and intelligence that even human being can’t beat. Their exquisite swimming skill, the way their slippery bodies always sparkling in the sun, and also their mischievous doings. They seem to have their own thoughts unlike any others of the nature’s creations. However, an increasing number of dolphins is found killed by humans for a long time in Taiji which is a certain town in Japan. Japanese tend to slaughter fishes and treat seafood as an essential daily demand. They unmercifully kill dolphins in a bay of Taiji. This is an open secret that everyone knows, but no one wants to admit the brutal truth. Every year, there are more than twenty thousands of dolphins are killed in this small and plain bay. These Japanese fishermen try to gather all the dolphins in this bay and besiege them by using fishing net. After besieging these innocent dolphins, they begin to use pike and sharp knife to kill them all in one time. Nevertheless, this cruel phenomenon was discovered by Ric O'Barry. He tried hard to reveal this inhumane behavior and shoot the event into a documentary film which called The Cove. He wants to attract people’s attention in the world and make them condemn the mass killing in Japan in order to stop them. He made every effort and took great risk to discover the secret behind the cove.
I. The Cove, a 2004 documentary by Louis Psihoyos
The Cove is a documentary film in 2009 and was directed by Louie Psihoyos. It describes and analyzes the hunting experiences in Japan. It was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010. The film reveals the truth that the local fishermen in Taiji slaughter about 23,000 dolphins every year. Moreover, the film records the process of Ric O'Barry and his team trying to discover the hunting truth. Ric O’Barry is the man who has captured and trained five wild dolphins. He put these dolphins in a TV show which become super popular afterwards. Since then, he found himself fall in love dolphins and swore that he never left dolphins. However, one day one of his dolphins committed a form of suicide in his arms. The dolphin closed her blowhole voluntarily in order to suffocate herself to die. This event made him suddenly realize that dolphin just like other animals, they are unwilling to stuck and imprisoned. Afterwards, he began to strive for the living right of dolphins and dedicate himself to protect dolphins because he did not want to see any suicide event about dolphins. Since then, he met Louie Psihoyos, the director. They travel with their crew to Taiji, Japan, a town that is possible to have dolphins slaughtering and killing. In the film, there is a isolated cove, but surrounded by wire fences and "Keep Out" signs, which means that there is something secret they want to hide. When their crew attempt to film what happen inside the cove, lots of local fishermen and even police come out and block their camera with anger. In order to record the truth, they negotiate with the local government and pretend their camera as a stone by all means. Finally, they capture the essential picture that blood flow all over in the cove and prove the cruelty appearing in the cove.
In the film, it wants to show us that the dolphin killing is due to the tremendous profit from selling. People capture the dolphins and sale them to the aquariums or just kill them and sale the meat to the supermarket. Furthermore, according to evidence presented in the film, the Japanese government obviously knows the truth. However, they still want to hide it to the world and acclaim that they do not do that. Although these dolphins are examined that might contain mercury, businessman still only care about their profits. Hence, this film totally attracts people to regard the dolphin issue seriously.
II. Annual Dolphin hunts
It wasn’t until the end of the 20th Century did the brave researcher Rick O’Barry finally uncovered the existence of dolphin massive killings in Japan. By the time the evidential video of the massacres on these marine animals had been shown to the crowd, the dolphins have already been suffering for decades. However, no rescue on the dolphins has yet been started; neither the governors nor animal-preservation groups dare to claim the responsibility. Most tried to stay away from getting stained by the cruel acts, for having waddled in such a mess is sure to arouse public despises. While debates roared in the conference rooms, greedy merchants coveting for benefits gradually extend their dirty claws in. The negative and passive reactions from the governments and international committees indirectly resulted in the increase of the dolphin killings around the globe; everyone was yearning to have a piece of the dolphin benefits before the chaos dies down.
The whole incident of dolphin killing was first erected in Taiji as one of the fishermen discovered the cove that dolphins kept visiting every year and its true value. It wasn’t long before the town set up a fishing team for the meat and profited much from the hunts. Taiji got in touch with traders secretly around the world, even some black-hearted entertainment parks got involved. Except the flesh of the marine animals, eventually the fishermen start providing life samples of the dolphins rather than just carcasses, once they found out the former to be a lot more valuable. Therefore every year from September to April when the dolphins come to the cove for sanctuary against the raging waves, the cove became their tombs. The vicious business was doing well and Taiji started to prosper from the rich income, it wasn’t until in one of Rick’s researches did he find out about the their terrible deeds.
Rick O’Barry has been tracking the dolphins swimming trails for ages after he retired from being a dolphin trainer. Engulfed by regrets and shame of “leading a dolphin to suicide”, he was determined to study its kind and know them by heart. He traced the dolphins throughout the open seas and followed them on satellites and sonars, mysteriously, a lot of them disappeared into Japan and was never seem. “Puff! Just like that, the heat sensors I planted on several of them just lost signal. I couldn’t figure out the reason so I decided to set out for Japan and dig out the truth!” Rick said to one of the reporters during one of his interviews. In hush preparations, Mr. O’Barry departed for Japan and through directions and guidance from friends who have the similar concerns and interests, they narrowed down their destination to a small town in Japan: Taiji.
Taiji was a normal town full of diligent and hardworking farmers and fishermen. It was known as a tourist spot for sightseeing dolphins and whales. Facilities such as a dolphin museum and entertainment parks were even set up for visits, nobody would have ever doubted the horrifying truth lying behind the covers. All except Rick O’Barry who came stumbling across.
“Annually in Japanese waters, small cetaceans are killed in “drive hunts” with quotas set by thegovernment of Japan. The Taiji Fishing Cooperative in Japan has published the details of a new killing method that involves cutting (transecting) the spinal cord and purports to reduce time to death. The method involves the repeated insertion of a metal rod followed by the plugging of the wound to prevent blood loss into the water. To date, a paucity of data exists regarding these methods utilized in the drive hunts.”(Andrew Revkin, PDS, April, 2013)
Viewing upon the deaths of these majestic marine beings were both heart-wrenching and painful at the same time, that’s why Rick tried to gather all the evidence he can find so desperately in order to stop the annual dolphin hunts happening in Taiji. But to his disappointment, the uncovering of the incident was sure to have made a big blast to the public but to what result? People push the responsibility toward one another and no law or policy is yet set up on dolphins protection. We all shook our head to the corruption and cowardice of nowadays society.
III. Whether dolphins have their own conscious
After talking about the cruelty and fact of the dolphin hunting, this paragraph is going to focus on whether dolphins have their own conscious and the to condemn the dolphin hunting. The hard-core activism and ex-dolphin trainer O'Barry turned to oppose to the dolphin hunting and performance because he had seen a dolphin commit suicide in front of him. It is just a simple example that proves dolphins have their own conscious. There still many cases that can prove dolphin are not only animals live on their instinct. Nowadays, people in some places still hold dolphin hunting annually. At the very begin, they may hold the hunting for living, but today, they get enough resources for living, why do they still hold this kind of brutal activities? “This hinges on how the film’s human characters and the filmmaker’s montage relate their different concepts of mammalian ‘self-awareness’ ” (Lord 8). As Lord mentioned in her article, the definition toward dolphins different from people to people because of the self-awareness. (p.8) In our idea, those people who enjoy consuming dolphins’ meat see dolphins as fish. They think those adorable animals are just for food. Take the animals people used to keep as pet like cat and dog for example. People will feel guilty of eating them, why? Because those animals are so close to us, we have a lot of contact in the daily life. Then people feel those animals got their own conscious and intelligence.
Once we understand that animals have their own thought, we will feel guilty because eating them is like committing cannibalism. Take a folk story for example, in the early years of R.O.C there was a soldier who loves to eat dogs. In his old ages, he got the nightmare of many dogs chasing him every night. This story might be the presence of guilty feeling. The dolphins get much higher intelligence than dogs, so why don’t the dolphin eaters take pity on dolphins? We can simply prove that dolphins get their own conscious in many aspects. Dolphins could blow solid bubbles in the water and play with them. Scientists analyzed those bubbles and amazingly found out these bubbles build up a language system. Not only the consuming of dolphin meat, the dolphin shows also harm dolphin enormously, and the injuries are often can’t be healed. Those tricks dolphins play to entertain the audience usually bring a heavy pressure to their bodies. Being jailed in a limited tank depresses the mental statement of dolphins very much. Just as a famous sentence of Michel de Montaigne “We think we are playing with the cat, but how do we know that the cat isn’t playing with us?” Audiences only see the splendid performance, what can’t they see is the tears that dolphins drop in the night. In recent years, more and more zoologists and dolphins trainers find out that those dolphins do not feel as happy as they thought. Those depressed dolphins usually live much shorter to wild dolphins and they can’t give birth to baby dolphins naturally too. The long-term depression of those dolphins may cause terrible results, for example, committing suicide. In Lord’s essay “Dolphins Who Blows Bubbles”, she noticed that “Dr. Potter points out the anthropomorphizing limitations … territory of signs.”(p.10) Indeed, we human maybe the most intelligent animal we ever discovered. The sense of superiority over other animals causes us do not respect the lives of other animals. We human-beings treat the animals cruelly like they deserved. However, what we ignore is, the real masterpieces of god are around us. Whatever the animals live or they communicate are the greatest result of evolution that had remain for billion years.
Conclusion
We try to convey our strong opposition to dolphin hunting through the whole article and there are many people try to fight against with dolphin slaughtering and whaling. For example, the documentary video series “Sharkman & Whale Wars” records about the action of a group oppose to hunting whales, dolphins and sharks. They take real actions instead of just condemn the whale/dolphin hunting orally. There were many dangerous scenes in the video while they meditating with the whaling ships, but they do improve the circumstance of dolphin hunting and whaling.
However, not only dolphin hunting, we should face the problem of how we treat animals. The issue of dolphin slaughtering is just a tip of iceberg. Geese are feed to dead for foie gras, pigs are being injected the growth hormone and egg chickens are forced to lay eggs in very tiny cages. There are still too many animals suffering all around the world because of humans’ desire. After watching “The Cove”, we were totally stunned by the scene of slaughtering. Although the frequency of dolphins’ crying is too high that we can’t hear it; as a member of the most intelligent animals, how do those people feel nothing when they killing dolphins? The unlimited desire of human beings makes more and more animals suffering. Nowadays, to ban the consuming of meat is impossible; but if we try to think in those animals’ side, and start to reduce our requirement of meat, the situation must improve. So far, the guilt and harm we have done to the earth is too much. It is necessary for human being to take thought for the animals and nature. It isn’t too late to atone for our crime. We have to try our best to change the way we treat animals and environment before the situation become irretrievable, leave a better place for the coming generations to live on.
Works Cited
Brakes, Philippa, and Mark P. Simmonds. Whales and Dolphins: Cognition, Culture, Conservation and Human Perceptions. London: Earthscan, 2011. P. 234-256
Crusoe, Maray. "11 Facts About Dolphin Hunts." Do Something. N.p., n.d.
<http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-dolphin-hunts>.
Heseltine, Annabel. “The Blood of Dolphins.” Earth Island Journal 17.1 (2002): 24. Academic Search Complete.
Len, Varley. Salt Water Tears An Eyewitness Account of the Dolphin Drive Hunt Slaughters of Taiji, Japan. Balboa Pr, 2011. Print.
Lord, Catherine. "Dolphins Who Blow Bubbles." Akademisk Kvarter. N.p., Fall 2011.
<http://akademiskkvarter.hum.aau.dk/pdf/vol3/Lord_Dolphins_Who_Blow_Bobbles.pdf>.
Shizuoka, Ken. “Dolphin Meetings” Seashepherd.org. 2003. Web, 20 October 2006.
Hays, Jeffrey. “Dolphin hunting in Japan” Facts and details.com,2009.
Würsig, Bernd G., and Melany Würsig. The Dusky Dolphin: Master Acrobat off different Shores. Amsterdam: Academic/Elsevier, 2010. Print
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