The Cove Killers

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Are we as bad as ‘The Cove’ killers? [23000 dolphins are killed in Japan each year. The Cove, a documentary film made in 2009 about the massacre of the dolphins, shed light on this hidden tragedy] Culling dolphins has been part of the Japanese culture for four centuries and only in recent years have westernised civilization labelled this as inhumane. But are the western ways not as equally merciless? In a discussion about Morality of Animals by Cory Davis it quotes “Animals are conscious, they feel pain, they can think and they have rights. Therefore it is immoral to kill an animal.” So why do we feel that it is our right to treat animals the way that we do? In Japan as the dolphins are being massacred, you hear their cries as they slowly and painfully die with a metal pin through their body. In the more western world animals are treated equally ruthlessly, pigs are pumped so full of antibiotics that they become cripple from their own extreme mass, two day old chicks beaks are mutilated with a red hot blade. From the mouth of a former slaughterhouse worker we realise the brutality that takes place right in front of us "On bad days, dozens of animals reached my station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. They die piece by piece." And we consider ourselves to be moralistic? Should the Japanese culture then not be more respected than for ours? What they are doing, even though it is immoral, is a part of their culture and what they believe in. The way in which our farmed animals are treated is not through our heritage or culture but rather due to time and cost savings. The human race is riddled with greed and as soon as a ‘quick buck’ can be made, we’re happy, it doesn’t matter at what extent it affects others. In a study by Erinna Bot, it was found that it costs €0.66(R6,77) to

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