Who hasn't grown up with the serie Flipper, apart from all who were born after the eighties?
I did and I liked it, it was entertaining and it gave me my first real feeling about marine life. Later years I used to watch lots on National Geographic, most about sea life, later on on travels I used to go snorklng as much as I could (scuba diving was a wasted on me as I get to claustrophobic), visited as many Dolphinaria/aquaria as I could. Had a first close encounter with dolphins in a course on Hawaii and was planning to visit the Dolphins here in POP but...
Yesterday evening I watched the movie "The Cove" and it was to say the least...a real eye opener.
For those who don't know what the movie is about : its a documentary about the trainer of Flipper (Kathy was her real name) who spend 10 years training this dolphin and others, spend years in dolphinaria to help to keep dolphins alive because in those early years they tend to dye quickly in captivity.
The further he went into interacting with dolphins, the more he got the feeling that there was something "else" that connected him with this creatures. As he said it himself, they can be called intelligent but that is scientifically hard to measure, what I am 100 % sure of is the fact that they are aware, aware of who they are, what is happening to them, aware of their surroundings...
You can see more and read more about this movie and the organisation at this link The Cove | TakePart - Inspiration to Action
What is happening to dolphins RIGHT NOW is whats part of the movie is all about, the slaughter of 25,000 dolphins every year in a small town in Japan called Taiji. They hunt the dolphins into a small bay where potential buyers/trainers from all over the world can take their pick which dolphins are suitable to be trained (cost US$ 150,000 per dolphin), they are sold all over the world to dolphinaria from that tiny small place and the rest is taken to "The Cove" to be slaughtered for their meat...just watch the movie and see for yourself how...
The movie is not about this man and his love for dolphins who turned him from being one of the first trainers of dolphins into an activist against dolphins in captivity. You follow the story through his eyes of course but its the tragic story about how a hit series in the seventies turned into a billion dollar industry where there is absolutely zero consideration for the dolphins, where the Japanese government deliberately and continuously tries to cover this up for the world and for its own people, its about politics around the world through the IWC (International Whale Committee) where the Japanese delegation has managed the last couple of years "buying" votes from other countries such as Aruba, Dominica and others to try to keep dolphins out of sight of the IWC.
My question to the Environment experts here is : is the Dominican Republic aware of the fact that 99,99 % of the dolphins in the Dominican Republic are coming from Taiji and are they aware that they are being hunted in a very barbaric way just for the sake of entertaining us and the ones who are not found suitable for that task are slaughtered in a still more barbaric way?
Awaiting your reply.
Acira
I did and I liked it, it was entertaining and it gave me my first real feeling about marine life. Later years I used to watch lots on National Geographic, most about sea life, later on on travels I used to go snorklng as much as I could (scuba diving was a wasted on me as I get to claustrophobic), visited as many Dolphinaria/aquaria as I could. Had a first close encounter with dolphins in a course on Hawaii and was planning to visit the Dolphins here in POP but...
Yesterday evening I watched the movie "The Cove" and it was to say the least...a real eye opener.
For those who don't know what the movie is about : its a documentary about the trainer of Flipper (Kathy was her real name) who spend 10 years training this dolphin and others, spend years in dolphinaria to help to keep dolphins alive because in those early years they tend to dye quickly in captivity.
The further he went into interacting with dolphins, the more he got the feeling that there was something "else" that connected him with this creatures. As he said it himself, they can be called intelligent but that is scientifically hard to measure, what I am 100 % sure of is the fact that they are aware, aware of who they are, what is happening to them, aware of their surroundings...
You can see more and read more about this movie and the organisation at this link The Cove | TakePart - Inspiration to Action
What is happening to dolphins RIGHT NOW is whats part of the movie is all about, the slaughter of 25,000 dolphins every year in a small town in Japan called Taiji. They hunt the dolphins into a small bay where potential buyers/trainers from all over the world can take their pick which dolphins are suitable to be trained (cost US$ 150,000 per dolphin), they are sold all over the world to dolphinaria from that tiny small place and the rest is taken to "The Cove" to be slaughtered for their meat...just watch the movie and see for yourself how...
The movie is not about this man and his love for dolphins who turned him from being one of the first trainers of dolphins into an activist against dolphins in captivity. You follow the story through his eyes of course but its the tragic story about how a hit series in the seventies turned into a billion dollar industry where there is absolutely zero consideration for the dolphins, where the Japanese government deliberately and continuously tries to cover this up for the world and for its own people, its about politics around the world through the IWC (International Whale Committee) where the Japanese delegation has managed the last couple of years "buying" votes from other countries such as Aruba, Dominica and others to try to keep dolphins out of sight of the IWC.
My question to the Environment experts here is : is the Dominican Republic aware of the fact that 99,99 % of the dolphins in the Dominican Republic are coming from Taiji and are they aware that they are being hunted in a very barbaric way just for the sake of entertaining us and the ones who are not found suitable for that task are slaughtered in a still more barbaric way?
Awaiting your reply.
Acira
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