Warning, there are some disturbing images.
When I was 14 years old, I wanted to be a Marine Biologist. Being able to swim with dolphins, I thought would be the coolest job. I have always loved dolphins and when I took a family vacation to Atlantis when I was 15 years old, I finally got to swim with them. It was one of the best times I’ve ever had. Since then I clearly went a different route with my career but my love for dolphins has always remained. I would go to the Shed Aquarium and watch the Dolphin show and I always thought one day I would go back to Sea World, I haven’t been there since I was 8.
That all has changed now. Recently Hayden Panettiere, the spokesperson for Save the Whales Again!, was featured on the cover of Self Magazine and it talked about her involvement with the Whaleman Foundation, free diving with whales, and her role in The Cove. I had never heard about the movie The Cove, which came out in 2009, and I am so upset I didn’t know about it sooner.
The Cove “is a 2009 American documentary film that describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taiji, Wakayama, in Japan from an anti-dolphin hunting campaigner’s point of view. The film highlights that the number of dolphins killed is several times greater than the number of whales killed in the Antarctic, and claims that 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed in Japan every year. The migrating dolphins are herded into a hidden cove where they are netted and killed by means of spears and knives over the side of small fishing boats.” After watching The Cove for the first time last night and I ended the movie in tears.
If you haven’t got the chance to watch it yet, I highly recommend that you do, it will give you a different outlook on what’s really going on with dolphins in Japan. The Cove recently won Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards.
For more information please visit these links:
- Whaleman Foundation
- Save Japan Dolphins
- The Cove Movie
- Take Part
- Save the Whales Again!
- CNN Explores Dolphin Hunts
- Panettiere Closet
I have also added a Social Vibe button on the left side of my blog, if you click it and answer a couple of questions (6 to be exact) Dove will donate money to the Whaleman Foundation. It is a very easy way to help out a great cause.
Images from Whaleman Foundation and AFP/ Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Filed under: MISC Wellness Info Tagged: | Dolphin Hunting, Hayden Panettiere, Save the Whales Again!, Sea World, Self Magazine, Social Vibe, Taiji Japan, The Cove, The Cove Movie, Whaleman Foundation
Hello! My name is Kristine and I live and work in New York City. Since I have been here I have realized how hard it is to maintain a healthy balance while living in the City. Work starts to consume your life and you can get lost in everything around you.
So sad!!! I saw this image and I couldn’t believe it : /
Please remember that the Oscars are given out for artistry and not journalism. The Japanese drive fisheries are an abomination and must end, but the movie is full of so many lies that it loses credibility as a voice for these animals. Your conclusion that “Taiji, Japan is the number one seller of show dolphins to aquariums all over the world including Sea World” is absolutely false. The animals spared from death at Taiji are not sent outside of Asia. Only Japanese and Chinese aquariums are willing to take animals from this type of cruel practice.
Ric O’Barry and the director take advantage of the audience’s willingness to believe that they fill the movie with lies to drive home their activist views. Celebs like Hayden Panettiere are earnest in their desires to help, and are innocent to the manipulation in the end result.
Their lies and manipulation are too numerous to list, but you can start with O’Barry lying about his background and experience on Flipper. And that dolphins are incapable of suicide as he describes should be your first clue to how far he will go to tell his story.
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