Mexico and US Go at it Again Over Dolphin-Labeling and Tuna

From the Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest....

The long-running dispute between the US and Mexico over Washington’s ‘dolphin safe’ labelling practice for tuna products is likely to see a WTO appeal, after the two parties together asked for an extension of the appeals deadline. Meanwhile, animal welfare and consumer advocacy groups in Washington are urging the US to look into options outside the global trade body for resolving the trade row.

WTO appeals deadline extended to January

At its last meeting on 11 November, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) decided to extend the deadline for submitting an appeal on the latest Tuna-Dolphin (DS381) ruling issued in September (see Bridges Weekly, 21 September 2011).

.....Washington had partially lost its claim in this high-stakes dispute over the US “dolphin safe” label for tuna products when a panel ruled the US practice unnecessarily trade restrictive (for further analysis on the tuna-dolphin case, see Bridges Trade BioRes Review, November 2011).

South Carolina Only State that Bans Capturing Marine Mammals for Display

The law has been around since 1962 and it's the legacy of an albino dolphin named Snowball.

Is Dolphin Therapy Cruel to Dolphins?

Knowing now how highly intelligent these animals are, I am very resistant to "using" them for therapy.

From the Washington Post...

The dolphin-therapy business has been booming, fueled in part by the rapid growth in diagnoses of childhood mental disorders such as autism. Desperate parents in search of cures have flown to the facilities, as if to a seaside Lourdes, when all else has failed.
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The practice, however, is fiercely criticized by researchers and marine mammal conservationists, including the educational anthropologist widely credited with having invented it, retired Florida International University researcher Betsy Smith. These critics charge that it is no more effective and considerably more expensive than skillful conventional treatment, while potentially harmful to the humans and the animals.

Smith, who was originally inspired by watching a dolphin interact with her mentally disabled brother in the 1970s, offered the therapy free of charge for more than a decade, before abandoning the work out of ethical concerns in the 1990s. She now maintains that dolphin therapy boils down to "the exploitation of vulnerable people and vulnerable dolphins."

The Issue of Dolphins in Captivity

This is a good argument from PETA for keeping dolphins out of aquariums.

(At my book club last week, someone actually admitted she craves fish and chips every time she goes to the aquarium! Shudder!)

Are Dolphins Like Human Children?

Scientists at Emory University think so.

European Military Exercises May Threaten Dolphins

According to the BBC....

The moving of Europe's biggest military exercise to the outer Moray Firth poses a threat to bottlenose dolphins, conservations have claimed.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) said noise from warships' sonar could harm the animals.

Dolphins Threatened by Australian Oil Spill

The World Wildlife Fund has reported that dolphins and other marine life have been swimming around in an oil spill off the coast of Australia. There have not been many deaths yet, but the toxicity could lead to long-term health effects for the animals.

SeaWorld Upset by Dophin Slaughter Film "The Cove"

It is not a favorable portrayal. They are basically portrayed as benefiting from the horrific hunting and capture of dolphins in Japan.

"The Cove" Continues to Disturb

We posted about this film a while ago, but it is still inspiring news coverage. Clearly, it is disturbing enough to provoke some real discussions about the ethics of dolphins in amusement parks.

Whenever I read about dolphins in places like Sea World, I think of an ex-co-worker named Gretchen who admitted she had "issues" with animals. However, she really liked dolphins because she thought they were so cute in their shows. She actually told me that they looked like they were enjoying themselves. (I'm sure Anna Paquin would agree...check out the picture on the story.)

How I wish she could watch this film. I haven't and probably won't because it would disturb me too much (this blog serves that purpose already), but then again, I'm already convinced.

From MSNBC....

The affecting cloak-and-dagger documentary “The Cove,” which documents a brutal dolphin hunt off the Japanese town of Taiji, is putting would-be amusement park visitors in an ethical bind and park owners on the defensive.

The film’s protagonist, Ric O’Barry, who trained the animals that played TV’s Flipper before he had a change of heart, indicts businesses like Sea World as being either overtly or tacitly complicit in the cruelty. “The captivity industry keeps the slaughter going,” O’Barry charges in movie. If he has his way, the gruesome images of bloody dolphins will keep you from buying a ticket to a marine park, or stepping into a pool of one of those “dolphin encounters” at a tropical resort.

Park owners, on the other hand, are crying foul, insisting they have nothing to do with dolphin slaughter and that buying a ticket helps support valuable education and environmental work.

....Long notorious for its brutality, the Taiji slaughter is a so-called “drive hunt,” during which fishermen in a string of boats use clanging sounds to herd dolphins into small coves. Once penned, some dolphins are picked out by dolphin trainers and animal brokers for purchase and transport to amusement parks and resorts. The rest are killed with spears, knives and clubs in an orgy of cruelty. As the film graphically shows, the sea water churns into a bloody froth. The cries of the dolphins are pathetic.

Canadian Fishermen Save Trapped Dolphins

Yay! I had read about their predicament a few days ago, but didn't have the time or the heart to post about it.

Glad to see they've been rescued!

Fishermen and a teenage boy from an eastern Canadian town rescued three exhausted dolphins that had been trapped behind drifting pack ice for nearly a week, the wife of the town's mayor said Friday.

Sadie May said the men cut a path through the sludgy ice in Newfoundland's Seal Cove harbor with their 18-foot trawler Thursday night, freeing the dolphins from an oval-shaped hole in the ice they had been swimming in for days.

Two dolphins followed the open channel immediately, but the third was too weak and tired, May said.

"He could barely swim about, the little guy, and the men knew something had to be done. A kid, 17 years old with a survival suit, jumped into the water and the dolphin just kind of attached to him and wrapped his flippers around him, like a friend or a mate," the mayor's wife told The Associated Press.

The teenager, Brandon Banks, helped tow the animal to open water, where it swam away, said May.

"The Cove" Is Getting Attention

We posted about "The Cove" a few months ago. It's a documentary about an annual Japanese dolphin hunt that occurs in the village of Taiji. It's gruesome, bloody and disturbing. It has just been screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

Here is a glowing review from Joel Reynolds with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The review is on Huffington Post.

Guy Who Trained Flipper Protests Dolphin Slaughter

I just read this story today.

The moment Flipper died in his arms, Richard O’Barry was transformed from a dolphin trainer into an activist determined to free captive dolphins around the world.

That was 39 years ago. Today, the man who trained Flipper for the popular 1960s TV series is crusading against the slaughter of dolphins in Japan, captured by hidden cameras in a chilling documentary called “The Cove” that’s being shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

And here's a little snippet for Gretchen, the animal hater at work, who wears everything having to do with dolphins, but believes we pay too much attention to animals. She believes dolphins have "fun" doing shows.

Well, that's not true, b&*@.

O’Barry has been on a dolphin-protection crusade since the day in 1970 that Kathy, one of the dolphins that played Flipper, died in a steel tank at the Miami Seaquarium while he was holding her. O’Barry is convinced that Kathy was sick and depressed from being held in captivity and forced to do tricks for the TV show.

“Dolphins are extremely intelligent and they get bored to death when they have to do the same things over and over,” he said. “They have larger brains than their trainers and they’ve been around a lot longer than we have.”

The Other Economic Value of Whales and Dolphins

Whales and dolphins have economic value as living things, not simply when dead and on a plate.

Whale and dolphin watching is one of the fastest growing industries in the Pacific region, injecting millions of dollars into the small island nations’ economies, Radio New Zealand reported Thursday. The radio quoted a report released Wednesday by the NGO International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) that whale watching is worth 26.7 million New Zealand dollars ($21 million) a year to Pacific nations.

The number of people in the region watching the marine mammals has jumped an average 45 percent each year. The figures exclude data on New Zealand and Australia.

The report said there were just 10,309 whale and dolphin watchers in Pacific island nations in 1998 but that figure had risen to 110,716 in 2005.
Xinhua

Photo by raphie.

Dolphin Slaughter Captured on Film

If you're a dolphin lover, brace yourself. It's not pretty.

Members of the group Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) spent seven months filming the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, part of Japan. The film is due for worldwide release this summer.

There are some powerful images captured for the film.

Captured dolphins were filmed writhing in pain as Taiji whalers speared them repeatedly or cracked their spines with spiked weapons. Stricken dolphins are also shown thrashing about wildly, blood pouring from their wounds until they finally succumbed. Meanwhile, a number of dolphin trainers and officials from the Taiji Whale Museum are shown cooperating in the slaughter — some even laughing — as the killing cove's bloodied, ruby-red water swept round into the adjacent capture cove.

But perhaps the most iconic scene is one in which a baby dolphin leaps to its death on the rocks after its mother is killed. This really was a surreal and incredibly sad sight to see.

What is especially mind-boggling is that the dolphin meat is not even considered safe for human consumption due to high mercury levels.

One of the officials OPS filmed was Taiji City Councilman Junichiro Yamashita, who organized certified tests on local dolphin meat bought from retail outlets in the town. The shocking test results revealed mercury and methylmercury levels that were 30 and 16 times, respectively, above advisory levels set by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. As a result, Yamashita hastily distributed newsletters to Taiji residents warning them to avoid consuming the meat — which he called "toxic waste."

So, another example where harm to humans and harm to animals clearly intersect.

Photo by Farl.

South Seas Dolphins Face Hunting and Captivity

Aw man, not the dolphins too! But it's true. Being cute and smart means NOTHING! We still want to harvest and exploit you too!

Woo hoo!

While the rest of the world sees dolphins as spirited creatures to be admired and cherished, the people of the Solomon Islands, an impoverished nation in the South Pacific, are not so sentimental. Every year, from December to March, men living in remote villages in Malaita province use dug-out canoes and boats to hunt dolphins.

Far out to sea, they attract the creatures by banging stones under water. Pods - as many as 200 dolphins - are herded towards the shore where the animals panic, driving their muzzles into the sand and suffocating. Villagers eat the meat but it is the teeth of certain species, particularly the spinner, that are most prized, used for special financial transactions such as paying dowries or 'bride price'.

The Malaitans are not the only people who see dolphins as a valuable commodity. Two hours by boat from the capital Honiara, on Gavutu Island, one man controversially claims to be working to save dolphins from the traditional hunts by selling them to aquariums.

The 40-acre island, surrounded by coral reefs teeming with life, has been leased by Chris Porter, 37, a former sea lion trainer from Vancouver, who established a dolphin export business in 2003. There was such an outcry over his first shipment of dolphins to a theme park in Mexico - nine of the mammals died soon after arrival - that Porter's activities were suspended amid fears that international condemnation of the trade would bring a boycott on the Solomon Islands' tuna fishing industry.

Last year the islands' government overturned the ban and he is back in business, employing 37 islanders in his burgeoning empire. Last October he sent a second shipment of 28 wild dolphins to Dubai. The animals were put on a barge, settled on mattress-like material, draped with wet cloths and transported from Gavutu to Honiara's domestic air terminal - closed for the occasion in case animal rights protesters tried to get near.

I know that a lot of people will accuse me of"cultural imperialism." These impoverished islanders need the employment and the dolphin teeth sales. This is economic survival. People first!!!

That argument gets tired after a while. Why do we punish animals for our own mistakes? Why do impoverished peoples have to rely on city slickers like Porter or the unsustainable harvest of animals for survival? Usually because they have no other opportunities or choices. They need to feed their families and survive. But why are they in this situation in the first place?

It's not the animals' fault. It's our fault as a species, particularly the members of wealthy corporations and citizens of the developed world. We create the global economic conditions that have left so many people in poverty that they have to rely on the land and its dwindling resources to survive. Why are the gorillas dying in Virunga? Because of war, poverty and corruption. Why is there war, poverty and corruption? Because of fights for resources. Why are there fights for resources? Because of human greed. We can't share. We take what we can get and then leave everyone else to fight for the scraps. And then we get angry because some people believe that the animals should not pay the price for saving the poor of the world.

They shouldn't pay the price. We should because our global economic system is the one responsible for this mess. We have to take responsibility for what we've created.

So next time you shriek "cultural imperialism" is causing poverty, look at yourself and see whether you may be playing a role in it too. Because it ain't the animals honey.

Photo by princessangel.

Dolphin Saves Beached Whales

How cool is this?

Conservation officer Malcolm Smith told the BBC that he and a group of other people had tried in vain for an hour and a half to get the whales to sea.

The pygmy sperm whales had repeatedly beached, and both they and the humans were tired and set to give up, he said.

But then the dolphin appeared, communicated with the whales, and led them to safety.

Japanese Kill Dolphins Too

Is there any animal the Japanese won't eat?

Hayden Panettiere and some fellow animal rights activists drew angry shouts and some shoving from fishermen in Japan when they tried to interfere with a dolphin hunt, according to video footage shot by the protesters.

The six activists from the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd paddled out on surfboards to a cove in the town of Taiji in southwestern Japan on Tuesday to interfere with the annual hunt.

The local fishermen and their supporters say hunting dolphins - in this case, pilot whales - is a Japanese custom that outsiders have no business interfering with.

"Whales and dolphins are traditionally being used (as resources) in Japan," said Hideki Moronuki, chief of the whaling section at the Japanese Fisheries Agency. "In this light, we cannot accept an argument simply based on emotional causes."

Sounds like he's using an emotional argument too by claiming it's a Japanese custom and, therefore, implying a cultural prerogative. Oh boo hoo (insert crying baby here).

Photo by chatallot.