Dolphin Killings Essay

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Hannah McGowen April 19, 2012 English 10H B-2 Dolphin Killings Looking at a small fishing town in Japan called Taiji, it seems as if it came right out of a story book. Three hundred miles from Tokyo on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, it harbors not only fish, but a big secret. Every year, in this small village, over two thousand dolphins are slaughtered. It was a secret the Japanese have kept for four hundred years, until now. Though the Japanese think the dolphin killings are fine, many others do not. As someone who has always loved animals, I believe that the dolphins killings should stop. The Japanese fishermen use a technique for capturing dolphins called drive fishing. Motorized boats circle around the dolphins and disorient them by creating a "wall of sound". Swimming frantically, they are driven to the shore and then trapped overnight in a small cove. The next day they are driven into a similar cove, where they are killed by harpoons, fish hooks, and knives. Those who survived either drown in the water or in their own blood, or dragged to a slaughter warehouse where they are stabbed to death. They are then butchered and sent to fish markets for the people of Japan to buy. As if that was not horrible enough, dolphin trainers and veterinarians witness and sometimes assist the killings. If they see a "good-looking dolphin", they purchase them to use in dolphinariums (a dolphin aquarium) and amusement parks around the world (Brian Duignan, Dolphin Slaughter in Japan, Advocacy.britannica.com) including the beloved Sea World. A former Sea World biologist stated in a short documentary, "Sea World has been involved in illegal and unethical actions to assure their parks are well stocked with killer whales." He also said in the same documentary that, "Sea World representatives secretly promoted the Japanese dolphin drivers where thousands of animals are

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