Friday, April 4, 2008

It Is Going To Take More Than Minimata To Save Flipper, OPS May Have The Ticket

This is a bit off my beat, I cover mercury emission regulations, but this story was one I got hooked into earlier with a post "How Minimata May Save Flipper". This follow-up highlights a covert operation by a brave bunch of Conservationists. The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), with some heavy funding by Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape, secretly filmed something I am sure every one of them wish they never saw, and no one else would ever have to see. But without exposing this tragedy it may continue and that is just unacceptable.

A graphic story of the annual Taiji, Japan murders of thousands of dolphins is brought to life in text form in an article by Boyd Harnell (and soon in film form produced by OPS and Directed by Louie Psihoyos). Boyd tells the story about how and why these brave filmmakers risked their lives to capture the horror so others around the world could see for themselves what was going on in the name of fishing. The ironic part is the dolphins are so contaminated with mercury that their own government warns against eating the meat. So this annual dolphin kill continues, I assume, mainly for tradition.

One scary fact is uncovered in the process and that is that many dolphin trainers and others you wouldn't expect to be complicit apparently watch and laugh as the killing goes on and they select dolphins they want to keep for themselves to train. How could they, how could they show so little compassion for an animal from which they make their livings?

The story is pretty much the same on both these sights but the pictures on Nemo's Notes show a little more of the story. Go to Cyber Diver News Network (CDNN) or Nemo's Notes for details. Not for the squeamish.

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