This a somewhat different yet poignant eulogy, but quite valid nonetheless…
As stated in the Academy Award winning documentary “The Cove”.
“Cathy (Flipper’s real name) swam up into my arms while looking into my eyes and voluntarily took her last breath”… dolphins are air breathing mammals that must make a concious effort to take each and evry breath to survive, and they have the ability to stop at any time… Cathy chose to end her life and this is why my statement is not stated lightly. She was saying good bye, she had had enough… dolphins have always made an attempt in communicating with us.
This is the comment stated by the foremost dolphin trainer in the world, and creator of the popular show “Flipper” that took the world by storm resulting in the launching of marine parks like Sea World and businesses charging a premium to swim with the dolphins. This same gentleman has spent the better part of his life trying to un do what ten years created. Bottle nosed dolphins are annually rounded up in a little known village in Japan and sold off to such facilities for about $150K each, and the rest are quietly and brutally killed in a cove that changes the blue Pacific to red. This process is repeated daily starting each Septemeber and much of the meat that contains high levels of toxic mercury is sold off as “whale meat” to the unsuspecting Japanese citizens. A plan to make this meat part of the mandatory lunch program in schools across Japan was thwarted by a couple courageous Japanese parents.
The toothless and largely ineffectual IWC (International whaling Commission)… dolphins are whales… has done nothing to stop practices such as this, while spreading misinformation and alowing the Japanese government to gain ground by paying third world countries (prmarily in the Carribbean) to support Japan’s cruel and archaic practice that, when asked, the local fisherman termed the annual practice of enslavement and murder as “pest control”.
DO NOT SWIM WITH DOLPHINS IN CAPTIVITY!
DO NOT PATRONIZE SEA WORLD OR OTHER SUCH FACILITIES.
SEND YOUR VIEWS TO THE IWC JAPANESE MEDIA, & BUSINESSES THAT PROFIT FROM ENSLAVED DOLPHINS.
DON’T BE PART OF THE PROBLEM, BECOME PART OF THE SOLUTION.
BE AWARE.