A place of sadness, injustice, and an utter lack of compassion Taiji is a place of genuine horror. What goes on there, from Sept 1st to Mar 1st of every year, is beyond anything we can conceptualize as part of the routine fabric of life in a modern industrialized nation. It’s a sickness that somehow got a firm foothold in an otherwise peaceful nation. So what makes it possible? For the most part, the operators of the Taiji dolphin drive-hunts have successfully managed to keep the whole affair under the radar. As global citizens, there are a great many things...
Lolita’s ‘Retirement’
The moment her freedom was stolen, over half a century agoPhoto Credit: One Green Planet – onegreenplanet.org The show is finally over. After more than a half century of forced performances, the Miami Seaquarium has announced that Lolita will no longer be required to take part in shows. She is known as Tokitae to the people of the Salish Sea, from whose waters she was stolen in 1970 (and that is what I’ll call her through the rest of this post). Today she is one of the world’s best known orcas, and the second longest held in captivity.The marine park’s...
What Shape is Our House In?
Endangered belugas in the St. Lawrence River, Quebec, Canada Photo credit: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cbc.ca On at least two of the key fundamentals, we’ve come a long way, and we’re beginning to make progress on a third. Where we once sought them out with whaling boats, to harvest them for their meat, blubber and oil, we now seek cetaceans in our waters using whale watching vessels. Where we once thought it perfectly acceptable to hold them in permanent captivity and to force them to entertain us, we’ve now banned that morally indefensible practice. Not only do we prefer to view...
This has to happen – 30% by 2030!
The time to act to protect our beautiful planet is now.Photo by Jeremy Bishop As you may have seen, we the citizens of almost every nation on Earth have recently become party to a global-level agreement that will confer on us some pretty ambitious targets and obligations over the next few years. The goals are challenging, even daunting, and the time we’ve given ourselves is short. Meeting them won’t be easy. So what have we agreed to, and why does it matter? Some of the key ones are these: 1. Reduce harmful government subsidies by $500 billion annually. To take...
Do what’s best for all concerned – human and nonhuman
With questions pertaining to the environment, it’s never about ‘us or them’. Beware any argument that implies this to be the case. Of course we want to do what’s best for us, or what’s best for our fellow humans, and the advocates of this argument know that. But what they don’t want you to notice is that the choice you’re being presented with is virtually always a false one. Much of the time, it looks like we may need to compromise on what’s best for some other species in order to achieve what’s optimal for us. But is it? What’s...
Where does that dolphin come from?
Which is the greater injustice? To have lived free and one day to have it cruelly and permanently denied? Or to have never known it at all? Which do you find more heartbreaking? For the overwhelming majority of captive dolphins, one or the other of these is their reality. If you had to choose between such options for yourself, which would it be? Most likely, you wouldn’t consider it any kind of a choice at all. When you visit any one of hundreds of captive facilities around the world, what the marine park wants you to see are happy, healthy...
A Terrifying Way to Die
On any given day, your social media feed is likely to produce at least one feel-good story about divers, boaters or fishers successfully freeing a whale or dolphin from entanglement. It’s always with a palpable sense of relief that we see the victim of our ocean trash able to safely swim away. Often, he’ll swims alongside the rescuer’s boat for awhile before heading out, seemingly in appreciation of the service done by his human benefactors. If fortune is with us and we come upon the scene early enough, there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll be able to cut away the...
Who’s who in the world of whales and dolphins
Cetaceans are a diverse group spanning 14 known families and more than 90 species
Photo Credit: Awesome Ocean awesomeocean.com
The Whaling Moratorium – 40 Years Later
Whaling has continued under many guises, including bogus scientific research.
Photo Credit: The Guardian
Ren Yabuki – Japan’s Champion for Dolphins
Ren Yabuki - taking on the Taiji hunters despite fierce opposition from local authorities
Photo Credit: Whale & Dolphin Conservation uk.whales.org