Word: dolphin
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September heralds the six-month dolphin-hunting season in Taiji, a small seaside town in Japan's southwestern Wakayama prefecture. And residents are sensing the attack on them has also begun. The Cove - a U.S. documentary with the air of a spy thriller that has been called "advocacy filmmaking at its best" since its release on July 31 - depicts Taiji's centuries-old tradition of killing dolphins with an unflinching eye on the sometimes gruesome process. The documentarians, led by photographer turned director Louie Psihoyos and dolphin trainer turned activist Richard O'Barry, have stirred both international outcry and acclaim...
...what does this mean for the Japanese? There's something about the way the fishermen look, pulling hard on their cigarettes as they stare down at the reddened waters of the cove, that suggests the task isn't exactly easy for them. Some would argue that dolphin-fishing is their cultural right and that foreigners should stay out of their business (i.e., the sale of dolphins for meat, at about $600 a head). The film counters with a fleet of scientists flown in (more money!) to unearth evidence that no one should be eating dolphin meat; samples were toxic with...
...irony is that O'Barry believes he's partly to blame. The dolphins that are killed are the leftovers from searches to find performers for aquatic parks, places that might not exist if hadn't been for Flipper mania. It's a lucrative trade. O'Barry says a trained dolphin can sell for as much as $150,000. In Taiji, the public is welcome to watch the selection of dolphins by trainers. What most people aren't allowed to see is what happens afterward, when the ones that didn't make the cut are moved to the next rockbound inlet...
...crucially, it delivers. This is like seeing baby seals clubbed to death, except that as adorable as baby seals are, no one has yet made a case for their being potentially smarter than humans, which is exactly what The Cove does for dolphins. To watch bleeding dolphins struggle for their last breath, to actually hear their agony, is devastating. Even if you would never eat dolphin meat, you feel culpable just for being part of the species that can teach another mammal tricks, reward it with snacks and pats and at the same time be capable of getting...
...what some scientists have begun to call the sixth great extinction event, this one caused almost entirely by human beings. Human expansion, hunting, deforestation and ultimately climate change are eliminating species at a rate up to 1,000 times higher than the evolutionary norm. Species like the Yangtze River dolphin and the golden toad have disappeared, while a range of animals - from the Sumatran tiger to the silky Sifaka lemur of Madagascar are on the brink...