"The Cove" wins an Oscar

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: Black Mountain

What makes dolphins special is all the of things that other animals are not... cute, intelligent, trainable ect.

Thats criteria for treating animals humanely?

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people see themselves as dolphins...

not the Japanese, apparently

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no one thinks cows or pigs are cool and no one wants to be like one! It's true that it's all about perception... are you saying that is wrong?

Yes. Your arguement is not based in science nor fact,just some very arbitrary cultural values.

For example, our culture is fond of dogs. Pigs are just as intelligent as dogs, if not moreso. Korea has no problem eating dogs, and in fact beat the dogs before killing them, because they believe the adrenelin makes the meat tastier. What makes their cultural bias wrong and yours right?

What about the Japanese?

Besides, i have had many friends comment on how they would like to be reborn as pigs after they found out how many orgasms they have during sex. Google it.

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Personally, I think there is a connection between dolphins and humans that doesn't exist with most animals... dogs and cats might fit this category as well.

that doesn't give me a lot to go on when determining what animals are worthy for slaughter and torture, and which aren't.

[thursday 1]

Originally Posted By: Mamabear

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

They have a big festival after the cull and everyone is happy as larry chomping down on Dolphin meat...no one forces them to eat it.

But do they really understand that they are chowing down on toxic levels of mercury and what that mercury can do to their children?

Sounds rather condescending. I bet they don't have TVs either. Damn natives.

[Go Native 70]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

I also don't think it helps that the Eco-Nazis come scrambling out of their smelly holes and try to pressure Japan into changing...well done hippies, that's really gonna work!!

Why is it that people feel the need to paint environmentalists and animal welfare groups in ridiculous stereotypes? And why in 2010 are we still referring to them as hippies? I have been the president of an environmental group and I can assure you I'm no hippie! Caring for the natural world around us does not make us all Nazis living in smelly holes...

Plus pressuring Japan to change in a lot of things is really good in my opinion. So many things here desperately need to change to even just slightly bring this country into the 21st century.

[Thundercat 60]

I'm not talking about dolphins in general being killed (sure there are lots of ways to kill them)... I'm quite obviously talking about how they are killed in Taiji. The ONLY way they kill them is by corralling and stabbing them... there are no clean kills among the 2000 that they take.

 

Have a peek at the movie and I think you may change your mind a little. It certainly changed my mind on the subject as I was truly indifferent before seeing it...

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Creek Boy

>It does happen to pigs, Pigs are "stunned" then have their underbelly slit from throat to tail and hung upside down.....still very much alive.

A slaughterhouse I saw used nail guns on the animals, but i dont really know much about the entire industry though I have tried to learn to teach this to my students.

O.K., I hear ya, I dont think there is a difference between animals, yet we humans do look at them differently. Itd be nice if they (all) were killed with one blow.

Thats all I mean!

To be fair, I don't know a lot about it either but I remember a programme on in the UK about 4 years ago before I came back to Japan and it took a group of regular people to the slaughterhouse and allowed them to watch the process from the entry of the animal at the front, to the exit at the back in meat trucks......it wasn't pleasant and more than a few of the people in the show had to leave or were physically sick.
Fast Food Nation is also a good read for those of you interested, it is about the US Meat industry, but I'm pretty sure the methods would be pretty similar in most western countries

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Black Mountain

I'm not talking about dolphins in general being killed (sure there are lots of ways to kill them)... I'm quite obviously talking about how they are killed in Taiji. The ONLY way they kill them is by corralling and stabbing them... there are no clean kills among the 2000 that they take.

Have a peek at the movie and I think you may change your mind a little. It certainly changed my mind on the subject as I was truly indifferent before seeing it...

ah ok. I have seen this footage before, its not as if I don't know what happens here. I'm neither for nor against it.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: thursday

Eco-Nazis are achieving the opposite of what they thought they were setting out to achieve.

Maybe, i'm not sure what the best way of changing cultural values is.

We do seem to be slowly progressing in terms of animal rights tho. You can't beat just any animal anymore.

[thursday 1]

so much hyprocracy, so little fish.

 

Have you seen the way the mediterranena people coral the bluefin and then stab them with their harpons and hawl them onto their boats. They were huge bluefins, perhaps 20 years old.

 

Now that they have dissappeared from the med, then no more ritual killing. Damn.

[thursday 1]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Originally Posted By: thursday

Eco-Nazis are achieving the opposite of what they thought they were setting out to achieve.

Maybe, i'm not sure what the best way of changing cultural values is.

We do seem to be slowly progressing in terms of animal rights tho. You can't beat just any animal anymore.

I don't classify you as an Eco-Nazi. I think those Rainbow Warrior people are.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: Creek Boy

>It does happen to pigs, Pigs are "stunned" then have their underbelly slit from throat to tail and hung upside down.....still very much alive.

A slaughterhouse I saw used nail guns on the animals, but i dont really know much about the entire industry though I have tried to learn to teach this to my students.

O.K., I hear ya, I dont think there is a difference between animals, yet we humans do look at them differently. Itd be nice if they (all) were killed with one blow.

so as long as the dolphins were killed humanely, you'd be cool with it?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Go Native

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

I also don't think it helps that the Eco-Nazis come scrambling out of their smelly holes and try to pressure Japan into changing...well done hippies, that's really gonna work!!

Why is it that people feel the need to paint environmentalists and animal welfare groups in ridiculous stereotypes? And why in the 2010 are we still referring to them as hippies? I have been the president of an environmental group and I can assure you I'm no hippie! Caring for the natural world around us does not make us all Nazis living in smelly holes...

Plus pressuring Japan to change in a lot of things is really good in my opinion. So many things here desperately need to change to even just slightly bring this country into the 21st century.

can you tell me when I said that? I didn't say that all environmentalists are crazed eco-warrior types, I said that this wing of the environmental lobby is harming the legitimate aims of the enviromental world.

It may be good, but Japan through history has hardly responded positively to outside pressure for change. Surely living here you would agree that making the Japanese close ranks on themselves and making a "Japan vs the world" issue out of it is not the best method for instigating change in this country

[Thundercat 60]

For me, I could care less if it were dolphins, pigs, dogs, lions, tigers or bears (oh my!) that are killed for food. The point that has so many people up in arms is this particular situation, which is what I thought we were talking about to begin with!

 

If I see you corralling a bunch of dogs into a corner with dog-whistles, then slashing at them until they were all dead I'd be outraged. I'd definitely feel exactly the same way if I saw pigs, lions, bears or whatever being killed that way.

 

BTW, my tongue was firmly in cheek when I made those comments about perception because while it is the truth, I don't really understand it myself...

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: thursday

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Originally Posted By: thursday

Eco-Nazis are achieving the opposite of what they thought they were setting out to achieve.

Maybe, i'm not sure what the best way of changing cultural values is.

We do seem to be slowly progressing in terms of animal rights tho. You can't beat just any animal anymore.

I don't classify you as an Eco-Nazi. I think those Rainbow Warrior people are.

wow...me and Thursday are agreeing on something!!

[thursday 1]

Wasn't it Farquah who helped make that film?

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: thursday

so much hyprocracy, so little fish.

Have you seen the way the mediterranena people coral the bluefin and then stab them with their harpons and hawl them onto their boats. They were huge bluefins, perhaps 20 years old.

Now that they have disappeared from the med, then no more ritual killing. Damn.

No fish ever killed painlessly. Certainly not the ones i caught, and i tried.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/23/jonathan-safran-foer-fish-farming

[thursday 1]

Here you go. Thanks Farquah

 

Originally Posted By: farquah

I was involved with the filming of a few documentaries in Taiji and have been many times. The biggest problem is the fact that the dolphin meat is so highly contaminated with Mercury it is dangerous to eat. Due tot eh fact it is high up the food chain means that it is far more highly contaminated than other food from the sea. When consumed this can cause a number of illnesses including something called Arctic Baby Syndrome (reversal in normal ratios of male to female births- seen in Arctic and Northern Canada), Autism, as well as Non Hodgkins Lymphomas disease, and cancers.

 

We were actually getting somewhere with our progress in halting the culls a few years ago until the "eco warrior" types turned up and put us back to square one. As with the Whale hunting, too much international pressure can paint Japan into a corner where they feel forced to stand up to it and defend themselves, we need to focus on the science not the emotional arguments to get anywhere.

 

The only way to argue things in Japan like this are on scientific grounds not humane grounds. The fact is that dolphins aren't endangered true, but the way they are killed is barbaric and there are laws on how we slaughter our animals for consumption. Add to that the fact that eating the meat is tantamount to eating toxic waste then it just deosn't make sense. There are wharehouses full of dolphin meat as there is no demand for it and there is no economic value at all. Dolphin watching is a far more sustainable and profitable option. If anyone is interested I have a lot of data and info on this topic and would be happy to provide you with it if wanting to teach about it in schools or just simply know more about it.

 

This isn't confined to Taiji either, also in Kyushu, Izu and Chiba.

 

This is a behind the scenes short video I made while in Taiji during the filming of "The Cove" which I was involved in and you can see some of the crew here.

 

 

 

 

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

So which is it? There is nothing to hide or the killings are unpleasant to look at?

I think if you watched what happens in any regular abbatoir you would find it unpleasant to look at. I think also the noise of the dolphins would trigger disgust in people, it sounds as if they are screaming. However lambs and pigs also have high pitched screams that would tug on our emotional heart strings yet there is no international furore. I also don't think it helps that the Eco-Nazis come scrambling out of their smelly holes and try to pressure Japan into changing...well done hippies, that's really gonna work!!

Nice juxtaposition, Eco-nazis.

Somehow, i don't think the nazis were the ones trying to save lives from systematic torture and killing.

Thats all, i'm back off to my smelly hole.

haha I think you're picking an arguement that isn't even there. Eco-nazi thing wasn't directed at yourself and I don't think you'd disagree that the term "Nazi" has been used in popular culture to describe an extreme element of a particular movement, the reference wasn't comparing the ideologies of the National Socialists of WWII and the Eco-extremist element that IMO hinders the Environmental causes of today

I know you were, and i'm just commenting on how ridiculous it sounds.
the only difference between myself and those 'extremists' is that they are actually acting on what they believe, and i'm just typing stuff on the internet. I am probably not that different that most of them.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Oyuki, I'm a little confused as to your stand in this thread....you are against all inhumane slaughter of ANY animal....right? Yur point in starting the thread was to highlight why people care about the dolphin slaughter and not other animals slaughter........right?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Terrorists such as the IRA, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Peoples Front of Judea (only kidding ) also act upon their beliefs but I don't know many people who would side with them or many who would agree that their extreme tactics has allowed them to get what they want

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

Japan through history has hardly responded positively to outside pressure for change. Surely living here you would agree that making the Japanese close ranks on themselves and making a "Japan vs the world" issue out of it is not the best method for instigating change in this country

So what, should we beat them in a war again and write animal rights into their new constitution?

The Taiji thing is not new, and there have been some very well-meaning attempts to reconsiter the dolphin cull, such as repositioning the village as a center for dolphin-related tourism.

But in the end, change has to come from the Japanese people themselves, but how are they supposed to change when nobody even knows about it?

Whaling and the dolphin cull have been way bigger news stories abroad than they have been in Japan, until the movie came out, no Japanese person i talked about it with even knew of any such thing.
Finally, this movie may spark an internal dialouge. Which is a start.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Originally Posted By: Creek Boy

>It does happen to pigs, Pigs are "stunned" then have their underbelly slit from throat to tail and hung upside down.....still very much alive.

A slaughterhouse I saw used nail guns on the animals, but i dont really know much about the entire industry though I have tried to learn to teach this to my students.

O.K., I hear ya, I dont think there is a difference between animals, yet we humans do look at them differently. Itd be nice if they (all) were killed with one blow.

so as long as the dolphins were killed humanely, you'd be cool with it?

I cant say yes to one animal and no to another - its hypocritical. As long as they arent endangered I dont see what the differences is.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

Maybe 3-4 years ago Farquah was kind enough to send me pictures of the event at Taiji. Theyre shocking

 

Taiji used to be a huge whaling port as well until the govt intervened - if the govt provides a means for the fishermen to get income, then the dolphin slaughter could be stopped. But what about the other 5000-7000 that are killed up in Tohoku?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Creek Boy

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Originally Posted By: Creek Boy

>It does happen to pigs, Pigs are "stunned" then have their underbelly slit from throat to tail and hung upside down.....still very much alive.

A slaughterhouse I saw used nail guns on the animals, but i dont really know much about the entire industry though I have tried to learn to teach this to my students.

O.K., I hear ya, I dont think there is a difference between animals, yet we humans do look at them differently. Itd be nice if they (all) were killed with one blow.

so as long as the dolphins were killed humanely, you'd be cool with it?

I cant say yes to animal and no to another - its hypocritical. As long as they arent endangered I dont see what the differences is.

I agree.

Oyuki, yeah that may well be the start of the Japanese taking it on board and the wider Japanese population talking about i t and perhaps condemning it, which is the best way to get things to change here.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

Terrorists such as the IRA, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Peoples Front of Judea (only kidding ) also act upon their beliefs but I don't know many people who would side with them or many who would agree that their extreme tactics has allowed them to get what they want

Well, there is one glaring difference in those organizations you mention and 'extremist' environmental groups. All those groups (Except the Judean People's Front, assholes), have killed people.

To my knowledge, no environmental group, no matter how nutzo, has crossed that line. I have read a bit about them, and while many do condone property damage, like Sea Shepherd, none of them condone murder, seeing the inherent contradiction of trying to save lived by killing.

Although, like you say, how successful they have been is unclear.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

Japan through history has hardly responded positively to outside pressure for change. Surely living here you would agree that making the Japanese close ranks on themselves and making a "Japan vs the world" issue out of it is not the best method for instigating change in this country

So what, should we beat them in a war again and write animal rights into their new constitution?

No....now who's being ridiculous?

What about all the letter bombs to animal research facilities? I don7t know if there have been any actual fatalities but the intent to cause bodily harm in this way is certainly there....maybe not widespread though.