The Underwater Truths

The dark stories that the deep blue waters of the oceans hide are appalling. What we hear of is nothing compared to what actually transpires.The story of the annual dolphin slaughters in Taiji, Japan, is one of the largest government supported animal slaughtering events that gets hushed up to such a high level that few know of it and even fewer are able to take action. Most of us have visited water parks and aquariums and have seen dolphins dance and kiss our cheeks as they apparently "happily"play with us. Their smiles are nature's biggest deception. Behind those smiles are just stressed out dolphins who won't get their food if they don't follow their trainer's orders. But this is nothing as compared to how these animals are captured from their home in the wild. Every year the local fishermen in Taiji gather to hunt these poor unaware mammals. Dolphins are extremely sensitive to sound and these fishermen exploit exactly this trait of theirs'. They create sounds from machines that scare the dolphins and they all are forced to head towards the shore where they are driven into a cove, and unspeakable treatment is meted out to them. It baffles me how we humans can harness our advantages over other species to handicap them further. Young and old dolphins alike are caught, most of them are chosen and sold to several parts of the world for aquatic entertainment purposes while the remaining "unchosen" ones are killed and sold for their meat. The meat is mainly sold locally and sometimes renamed as other meats and sold. Astonishingly only very few locals are aware of this blasphemy committed by the fishermen. The government helps these fishermen as the money brought in by the sale of these dolphins is huge. Environmental activists who have tried to expose this sham have sadly been unsuccessful due to the aggressive behaviour displayed by the locals. Richard O' Barry of "Flipper" fame and a well known activist dedicated to saving dolphins across the world has had luck in portraying this story in a documentary titled "The Cove". This documentary explicitly gives a detailed account of the hardships dolphins along the coast of Taiji face annually. As human beings, apparently the intelligent species with greater emotions and sensitivity, it is a shame to see such cruel behaviour being meted out to living beings who have an equal right to life as us.