The photo above has NOT been ‘Photoshopped’ – that is the actual color of the water due to the annual slaughter of tens of thousands of dolphins in a secluded cove in TAIJI, Japan. You can see several of the killed dolphins in the boat. That’s all blood – a sea of blood.
The coastal village of Taiji, Japan, is home to the worst dolphin massacres in the world, motivated entirely by greed and fueled by the ignorance of the local people and the Japanese government. The bloody red waters of Taiji, Japan are only the beginning of this story...
From blog Taiji, Japan
If you've not seen the documentary The Cove, you should.
La Bonne et Belle Bianca rented it, by mistake, one hot summer night last year. It was Movie Night at The Manor, just a little something we do on behalf of Management and Domestic Staff Relations -- to bring everyone a little closer, build a little camaraderie.
It was the last hot day of ManorFest 2009. We were inundated with Monks taking advantage of Last Day Specials -- especially the discount to Walk the Labyrinth. The sun was setting and there were still some 55 Cistercians wandering around the Marlinspike Manor Maze, which they consider a spiritual exercise. The Brothers who had already found their way out lined the rear arc of the amphitheater, killing time with a movie while their colleagues quietly cursed the falling darkness inside the serpentine boxwood.
(Our Rescue Teams would lead them out during Intermission.)
The Castafiore thought she had snagged a film of The Kooks in concert and -- given the amazing way in which sound carries in our open-air stadium -- disrupted the first ten minutes of The Cove with Fierce Mutterings: Oh! Dieu, que de bijoux-oux-oux! Ah... ah... ah... je ris de me voir-r-r si belle en ce miroir-r-r!
Kind of hard to ignore, I admit, but we've had years of practice.
Eventually, even Bianca was drawn into the strange world of Taiji, Japan, and its accusatory eyes and barely concealed evil. The Monks would have heaved Big Sighs, if that were allowed. Those moments when Prayerful Intercession runs smak dab into Active Need are hard to reconcile.
That's not to say that this movie's Call to Action fell on completely deaf (or tonsured) ears. A good many emails went out, righteously indignant. None were answered, and there were no second volleys of indignation on our part.
It's easier just to forget.
But we've ordered time so that it cycles for many reasons, one of which is annual remembrance, recurrence. Yesterday, I read:
These are dark days in Taiji, Japan, as far as conservationists are concerned, because this week marks the beginning of the annual dolphin hunt in the remote village made famous last year by the Academy Award-winning documentary, "The Cove."
The hunt began Wednesday despite widespread international opposition and protests in Tokyo.
Ric O'Barry, who trained dolphins for the 1960s show "Flipper" and helped produce "The Cove," traveled to Tokyo and delivered a petition of opposition, signed by 1.7 million people from 155 countries, to the U.S. Embassy. The activist, who also has produced an Animal Planet miniseries called "Blood Dolphins," was forced to cancel a trip to Taiji amid alleged threats from an ultra-nationalist group.
"I wish all these people could be in Taiji," O'Barry told The Associated Press. "It was too dangerous. The big losers are the people of Taiji."
Most of the dolphins corralled into the cove during the hunts are killed and processed for meat, but some specimens are sold live to aquariums. Japan allows the killing of about 20,000 dolphins a year and claims the hunts are an important part of the nation's culture and tradition.
Taiji, a community of about 3,500 and the birthplace of Japanese whaling, accounts for about 1,500 dolphin deaths annually. Its "oikomi hunting" practice of banging on metal poles to create a wall of sound to herd dolphins into the cove in preparation for slaughter is what drew worldwide criticism after "The Cove" was released.
"We will pass down the history of our ancestors to the next generation, preserve it. We have a strong sense of pride about this," town Mayor Kazutaka Sangen told the AP. "So we are not going to change our plans for the town based on the criticism of foreigners."
The first victims, about 20 bottlenose dolphins, were herded into the infamous cove on Thursday. The cove, with the help of netting, will serve as a holding pen. The actual killing of dolphins won't begin for about two weeks...
-- Despite swelling opposition, dolphin hunt begins in Taiji, Japan
By Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com
Friday, September 3, 2010 9:33am PDT
This video about the dolphin killing in Taiji was made by BlueVoice.org in late 2006:
I recently saw 'the Cove' and I was chocked to see how they murdered those intelligent and beautiful creatures! I just can't believe that humans can be so cruel and ignorant! Everybody should definitely see 'the Cove'!!
ReplyDelete