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200 Dolphins Await Slaughter In Japan's Taiji Cove
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "CNN reports that more than 200 bottlenose dolphins remain penned in a cove by Japanese fishermen, many of them stressed and bloodied from their attempts to escape before fishermen start to slaughter them for meat. Until now, the fishermen have focused on selecting dolphins to be sold into captivity at marine parks and aquariums in Japan and overseas as twenty-five dolphins, including a rare albino calf, were taken on Saturday 'to a lifetime of imprisonment,' and another 12 on Sunday. 'Many of the 200+ Bottlenose dolphins who are in still the cove are visibly bloody & injured from their attempts to escape the killers,' one update says. Although the hunting of dolphins is widely condemned in the west, Japanese defend the practice as a local custom — and say it is no different to the slaughter of other animals for meat. The Wakayama Prefecture, where Taiji is located condemns the criticism as biased and unfair to the fishermen. 'Taiji dolphin fishermen are just conducting a legal fishing activity in their traditional way in full accordance with regulations and rules under the supervision of both the national and the prefectural governments. Therefore, we believe there are no reasons to criticize the Taiji dolphin fishery.' Meanwhile the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society describes how about 40 to 60 local fishermen work with nets to divide up the pod, whose initial numbers were estimated by the group at more than 250. 'They tighten up the nets to bring each sub-group together then the skiffs push them toward the tarps. Under the tarps in the shallows is where the trainers work with the killers to select the "prettiest" dolphins which will sell and make the best pay day for the hunters,' the group says. The fishermen will 'kill the "undesirable" dolphins (those with nicks and scars) under the tarps to hide from our cameras when that time comes.'"
Dolphins are intelligent, they'll figure a way out of this.
Yes, dolphins are cuter than cows and pigs ... is harvesting one worse than the other?
How many million cows are slaughtered every year? How many pigs? How many chickens?
This sounds like one set of animals has better PR than another.
Not a biased piece at all. Never would have thought so with ''slaughter'' in the headline /s
I don't see evidence of bias in the word choice. "Slaughter" is the normal English word to describe the killing of animals for food. Pigs and cows are "slaughtered" routinely, in buildings clearly labelled as "slaughterhouses."
What other word would you have them use?
No, this is not clickbait.
Normal, mentally-healthy humans have a lot of empathy - otherwise we're psychopaths. Sure, the amount of empathy varies - mainly as a function of whether the animal in question tends to act human-like. We should embrace this, not cynically write it off - empathy *IS* humanity.
Yes, that also means that anyone who is intelligent and reflective will be uncomfortable with eating meat, concerned how the animal died, and of course what kind of animal it was. This is basically orthogonal to issues of environmental or ecological impact.
"200 yummy dolphins await being turned into delicious food"
Vegetarianism is about the minimization of cruelty and suffering.
Plant life does not factor into it because they can not suffer. They can’t suffer because they have no nervous system with which to think. They also have no physical mechanisms with which to feel pain. And even if they did, they have no thoughts, so the pain would mean nothing. They have no fear, panic, or sadness. They live, but they live without consciousness. So you can not torture a plant or make it suffer.
On the animal spectrum, not all animals are the same since some animals have small brains and simple thoughts and other animals have complex brains and complex thoughts. At the top of the animal spectrum you have humans with the most complex brains and abstract thoughts and intense sensations of fear. Humans have a high capacity to suffer. On the other end of the spectrum you have animals like spiders with comparatively simple nervous systems and simple thoughts. They have a much smaller capacity to suffer. That’s why it would feel more painful to watch someone rip the legs off a spider than watch someone rip the legs off a cat or horse or chimpanzee. So there’s a spectrum of animals ordered by how self-aware they are and how complex their thinking is: spiders, fish, chickens, ravens, octopus, cats, dogs, pigs, cows, horses, dolphins, gorillas, chimpanzees, humans... roughly something like that. Everyone draws a line on the spectrum, whether consciously or unconsciously, what they are comfortable with. Some people are fine eating fish and chicken, but not pigs and cows. Other people are fine eating pigs and cows, but not chimpanzees, who are almost human. Some people are even fine eating chimpanzees and feel no empathy when they shout and panic. Almost everyone at least agrees that it’s not ok to eat humans. But some people even do that. A vegetarian draws the line at it being not ok to eat any animal.
Some people argue that oysters, despite being animals, are vegetarian. They aren’t, by definition of the word vegetarian, but it is true that the argument for plants applies to oysters. Oysters do not have a central nervous system, no consciousness, and no thoughts. So they can not suffer.
Not all vegetarians are vegetarian for the same reasons. Some people have a spiritual belief that all life is sacred and equal, but that’s not my belief and not something that’s supported by any facts I’ve seen. What I outlined above, though, is simple fact and simple reasoning.
That sort of escalated rather quickly.