http://eloramalama.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/culture-capture-and-sell-...

This is from Elora's bog - a brave 16 year old blogging from Taiji about the dolphin slaughters:

I want to start this blog preaching to the choir a little. I might have already said most of this, but I don’t care, it’s on my mind and I want to put it out. They talk about “Culture” and “Tradition”… and yes, actually 400 years ago they did hunt whales, but it is different. Steven Nakada from Japan, showed us how to properly enter a place that was used to pray for the lives of the whales. Back 400 years ago, when the town was starving and there was no farm land, they would come and pray for the life of the Whale ( and the people who were sacrificing their life to bring it to the village). Steven N. told us about how they could loose up to ten men every time they tried to row in a Whale, because it is a large animal. The families would cry, but pray for their fathers, sons, husbands or friends that sacrificed to feed them. The promatory we are always talking about, is a old whale look out spot. The stairs would be used to watch for signs of a pod, there were thousands more back then, and then they as a village would pray at the small temple that is just behind the stairs. This is the way it was and should still be (if whaling must exist). Dolphins are Whales. The practice of driving them into the killing Cove with motor boats and metal poles started in 1972 ish. IT is not culture… it turned into a business. Do they really think they can use the excuse of “Culture” when they are capturing constantly and SELLING half the pods. If this was really the way that they need to feed the Japanese people still, they wouldn’t have sold over a hundred dolphins this season alone.

What really pisses me off, is the fact they think they own the animals! They do not have the right to pull them from their home, and sell them for profit and show. It’s slavery! Not only is this rape of our Oceans a holocaust, but a slave trade as well. “Dolphins are non human persons”-Thomas White, and need to be treated as such.

No one believes this bull about culture, except the un-educated people who do not know or chose not to care. That is who we need to reach out to… because the rest of the world views these excuses and the people who use them as uneducated pathetic liars. The hunters are molesters, and the government pays them to be… only the human species would.

Today we spread out all over town, the cove, and Le trail. There was no where they could go were there was not a camera. No place to hide, it was wonderful. We all updated each other on what was happening by phone and were able to set up an actual operation.

I have to get up at 3am tomorrow morning again, because they left over 100 dolphins in the Cove tonight, that we expect will be slaughtered. They captured 36 dolphins for the trade today, and took one baby to the whale museum.

Read more updates from the blog: http://eloramalama.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/culture-capture-and-sell-slaughter-a...