Dolphins are one of America's most loved aquatic mammals, causing thousands to flock to Seaworld's dolphin shows every day. What most people don't know, or even consider, is how the dolphins ended up in that tank.
After watching a particularly disturbing movie in my AP Environmental Science class in high school titled "The Cove," I came home crying and telling everyone I knew to sign this petition to save the dolphins. In the small city of Taiji, Japan, 20,000 dolphins are either sold or slaughtered each year. The hunters trap them into a small pod in a cove using echolocation and either capture or kill them. This absolutely broke my heart. Ric O'Barry, one of my personal favorite activists, created this documentary in hopes of making the public aware of this extremely cruel, and not to mention illegal, slaughter of thousands of dolphins.
While some may not care due to the fact that they are "just animals," dolphins are self-aware. This means that they know exactly what is happening to them when they are being trapped in this cove. You can hear their shrieks to one another and they obviously sound terrified. If this does not matter to you, what may make you angry is that dolphin meat is passed off as whale meat and used in elementary school lunches in Japan. Dolphins have one of the highest mercury contents of aquatic species. This makes the children fall extremely ill.
The worst part of this is this is not an isolated event. So many animals are hunted and killed each year, extremely diminishing their population. The hunters see them more valuable dead than alive, unless they are sold to Seaworld for a fortune. The hunters do not understand the impact that endangerment and extinction have on the ecosystem of not just the ocean, but land as well.
The trainer of the dolphin for the hit 60's show Flipper did not consider the torture that he was putting the dolphin through. He thought the dolphin was happy, but after a year or so of training, the dolphin committed suicide by intentionally drowning himself. Dolphins are extremely intelligent animals, proving he knew exactly what he was doing. Imagine being forced to do tricks after being taken from your home and enclosed in a tank equivelent to living in a bathtub as a human adult.
For years, Ric O'Barry has been going to Japan to try to expose the evils of Taiji, Japan and was recently banned from the country. He is so clearly passionate about his mission to save these animals. One of his most renowned quotes states, "if you're not an activist, you're an inactivist." I encourage all of you to join me along with millions of others in boycotting Seaworld and any other places like it. If you're interested in contributing and receiving updates on O'Barry's mission, text DOLPHIN to 77177.
