Thanks

As for a Save the Puppies group.. if you did a bit of research you would find there is a lot of campaigning against the use of dog meat within korea, not just from outsiders, from the people themselves. Not Everyone in Korea eats dog meat. Take a trip onto the Asian Animal Network and find out for yourself.

You seem to think that because the likes of Ric OBarry and his crew are campaigning in Japan, were there is a fair judiciary system, that this makes their actions less noble?
Why so? You make a comment about having good food in japan, isn’t this all just a matter of opinion?? I dont think you can break down what the dolphin activists do considering you have probably never done it yourself, correct me if I am wrong?! Have you ever been arrested in a foriegn country? How can you possibly comment and make this sound like it is no mean feat?
As for the terrible treatment of Islamic women, this is a human/religious matter. And again, there are plenty of people who speak out for these women, plenty of charities and organisations hoping to end the suffering of these women. This is a MUCH more sensitive issue.
If there are people willing to speak out for the dogs of korea, the women of Islam, then what is so crazy about speaking out the Dolphins of Taiji??? Some-one has to speak out for them, afterall, animals cannot speak for themselves. I dare say if they could none of this would go on.

Im glad that you agree that the killing of these dolphins is a horrible act. I just find it strange that you seem to agree with me on this matter but yet you spent most of your comment slaying the actions of the people trying to help them??

The cow, pig, lamb that ends up on your plate, was not a wild animal. It was bred to be ate. There are lots of people out there who campaign against the farming and slaughter of these animals, I can completely see their point. If you want to talk about this maybe you should go to another forum on the Peta website.
We are not talking about pigs, cows and lambs that we eat everyday… we are talking about WILD animals, intelligent WILD animals. Whole families of these animals. And they’re not killed to be put on our plates, at least they shouldnt be, due to how dangerous their meat is. Infact, I dont actually see any sensible reason as to why they should be killed? Fishermen say it is because they are eating too many fish? Utterly false, no scientific proof to back this claim up!
I am glad there are people like Rob A.

Well, you see, there is this little thing called “eating”, it is kind of necessary to life. And in order to eat, for most animals at least, one living thing must kill another. Some kill things that move, some kill things that do not, some kill both. Unless you can find some way for humans to survive by eating sulfur or something similar like some bacteria do, we’re going to have to keep on killing if we want to live. No way around it.

But whether you think it’s morally wrong or not, millions of others do. Not just that, but actually repulsive. If Japan wants to present itself as a civilised, attractive country to the rest of the world (which it clearly is in many other respects) the authorities should seriously think about the implications of this event for the Japanese national brand and its validity in the modern world. The same goes for Denmark, where they have a similar tradition.

Mercury Fighting Mineral in Fish Overlooked in Heated Debate
http://chetday.com/mercurymineralfish.htm

Selenium: Mercury’s Magnet
http://mercuryfacts.com/fSelenium.cfm

Selenium is plentiful in fish, but the public hasn’t heard much about its role in the mercury puzzle. … In scientific jargon, selenium has an unusually high “binding affinity” for mercury. In layman’s terms, this means that when the two elements are found together, they tend to connect, forming a new substance. This makes it difficult for the human body to absorb the mercury separately. So when mercury “binds” to selenium, it’s no longer free to “bind” to anything else — like brain tissue.

The research world is still developing explanations for exactly how selenium cancels out mercury’s potentially toxic effects …

So as long as there’s enough selenium contained in whatever you eat to neutralize the mercury you consume, there’s nothing to worry about, at least from mercury poisoning.

.

The chart in the websites above shows that Pilot Whales have unusually high levels of mercury in comparison to selenium.
I could only find the horribly formatted Japanese article from the website for OPRT (Organization for the Promotion of Responsible Tuna Fisheries) addressing this issue.

第４回　国際シンポジウム｢水銀とセレンの役割｣に参加して
http://www.oprt.or.jp/C30-4.htm

This is written in the first-person by an unknown author, but it points to the proceedings of the International Symposium of Selenium-Mercury Interactions as proof, which I can’t find any free versions of.

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Selenium–Mercury Interactions
http://www.springerlink.com/content/91645872uk216482/

If we are to believe the Japanese essay, the proceedings mentions the Inuit, who have been known to consume Pilot Whale meat, have an affinity for the oil of the whale, which does tend to have higher concentrations of selenium than the overall whale as a whole.

.

I can’t find any conclusive studies on selenium content of dolphin meat, but if it turns out to be as high as the supposedly toxic levels of mercury in it, there should be little to worry about, at least from mercury alone. As the Japanese diet tends to contain a lot of fish, that should contribute to neutralizing any mercury as well.
And that in turn, would make the claim of whale conservationalists protesting Japanese whale/dolphin consumption under the guise of concern for the mercury poisoning of Japanese children pretty much irrelevant.

But I should add that the Mercuryfacts.org site does have a prominent image link pointing to the dangers of whale meat consumption.
It’s claim is that whale meat tends to have a slurry of other toxic pollutants built up in it. The blame of cumulative effects were supposedly slapped onto mercury in a hasty and poor study, which in turn has led to the widespread fear and loathing of mercury alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_intelligence#Self-awareness

Case A
You are confined in a cell or a cage all of your life. You have no freedom. You eat whatever they feed you. You have no choice. You cannot mate with anyone. You cannot have your family. If you are a female, they will make you artificially pregnant so that you will produce milk. But as soon as you give birth to your baby, they will kill your baby so as not to waste your milk. There is no chance you can live till your natural longevity. They will kill you while you are young and tender. One day they will come, make you unconscious and kill you humanely.

Case B
You are free and you live in the wild. You can go anywhere you want. You can eat whatever you want. You can mate with anyone you like. Chances are that you make a big family. You may live till your natural longevity. But there are chances that hunters will come and kill you brutally.

Which situation do you like to find yourself in?
If the answer is B, why complain hunting on the ground of humane treatment of animals?

Japanese government has issued a recommendation letter for sea food consumption.
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/bukyoku/iyaku/syoku-anzen/suigin/dl/051102-1en.pdf
“Recommendations for pregnant women to select and eat fish and shellfish
Bottlenose dolphin
Recommended amount (muscle)
Up to about 80 grams (average 1 meal) per 2 months
(10 grams/week)”
“Advice for people other than pregnant women
This advice is intended to protect the health of unborn babies. Children and other adults than the pregnant women are unlikely to have a health risk from mercury in fish　and shellfish they eat normally.”

I think this is where your comment should have ended.

I’ve never seen a dolphin speak sign language.
Koko the gorilla was “able to understand more than 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language, and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English.”
I do not see how anyone can argue a dolphin is more intelligent.

The lowland gorillas, (Koko), are currently considered extremely endangered.

So I ask again… Why dolphins? Oh, they’re adorable, right.

This isn’t like “beef can cause heart disease” blah blah blah.

Dolphin meat has DANGEROUS LEVELS OF MERCURY IN IT. To the extent that eating it once a week will give you MERCURY POISONING. How is that an ignorable issue!? I don’t understand!

I mean, if you people don’t get it, then you just don’t get it.

But there were even activists in Japan that fought against having dolphin meat served at their schools. And guess what? They won and it’s not served there anymore.

More and more people are becoming aware at how bad dolphin meat is for you. You guys should be more aware too.

Either that, or you should start eating more of it yourself…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ–faib7to

Why not accuse this farm of brutality?

Can it not be bad enough to collect donations???

I am not necessarily against animal right movement, but I want to say one thing to the journalists in English.
I have a feeling how English media report about animal right movement is not entirely fair.

When journalists report animal right activism about whales and dolphin in English , they almost always put up the photos of whales/dolphin with bloody bodies, while showing no photo of cruel conditions animals are suffering when it comes to reporting other “extreme” animal right activism against, for instance, animal experiments, I wonder why.

Does it really matter? No. When the world gets hungry, it will eat whatever it eats.

Yeah well, anything is arguable. In truth we don’t really know much about the intelligence of dolphins, or whales for that matter. The idea that these animals are as intelligent as humans is a myth which has no basis in observable fact.

Recent archeological evidence supports the theory that dolphins evolved from a prehistoric species of rat. I find that believable because rats are pretty smart. Many animals are intelligent. Pigs, for example, are very intelligent animals. They’re more trainable than dogs actually.

Having said all that, from what I’ve seen and heard about The Cove, it seems to be a brilliant documentary. The fears that it will stoke anti-Japanese sentiment seem to me to be overblown.

Speaking of intelligence, the Japanese are plenty smart. They really can take care of themselves–even without the aid of overanxious Japanophiles agonizing over just how inaccurately and unfairly they are portrayed in the Western media.

This may be of interest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/world/asia/31iht-dolphin.1.9638971.html
“The Fisheries Agency in 2005 upgraded a two-year-old advisory to urge pregnant women not to eat dolphin more than once every two months.
In any case, the 0.4 part per million limit on mercury does not apply to dolphin meat, and there are no plans to strengthen the guidelines, officials said.”

what if my tradition was eating people? try defend that.

On the other hand, if you are going to argue from purely philosophical motives then the emotionally-drenched cuteness arguments or an inconsistent ‘intelligence’ criteria (is an intelligent person’s life more valuable than someone less so?) will not do.

Anyway, I have a serious question regarding the allegedly dangerous mercury levels in serving dolphin meat. If it so dangerous why would officials allow it to be served to local children? Really. Where is the political or financial benefit (and I mean benefit enough to willfully ignore obvious damage to the health of local children)? If it is as dangerous as some state them how do we explain the motive (in a country that is extremely cautious about food safety- both domestic and foreign)? Can someone answer this wthout invoking the argument that J officials are all basically malevolent Dr. Evils with absolutely no moral conscience or the similarly yawn-inducing ‘Well, we all know that J authorities have no regard for human life’ lines?

Why? What are rights?

“….they are actually more intelligent than us as they have the ability to communicate with each other by sending images through sound.”

In this case, aren’t bats more intelligent since they can use sound to “see”? Or any animal with any ability that differs from other animals? In other words, why is this a mark of “intelligence”?

The most critical issue here is this….

Does dolphin taste good? And what kind of wine goes good with Flipper fillets? Does it go with a nice rice pilaf or is it better served on a salad? And does it make good sushi/sashimi?

“They exist to reproduce and be eaten by humans. ”

One more reason to exist then than humans.

Nets and drive hunts kill w/o discretion, other ENDANGERED species get caught other than the bottlenose (which is not endangered and seems to be the focus of those arguing that dolphin hunting is ok.) even whales.

Taiji has actually INCREASED it’s dolphin hunting over the years, probably in response to previous protests. There’s about 7 international organizations against their hunts, but what organization defends the fishermen? Name one. You can’t.

This isn’t about culture, this is about general health and the environment. The meat is too contaminated to eat, so where does it go? The children’s school lunches. It’s too toxic for most stores, so they give it to the kids, isn’t that nice? Children don’t have a choice and they’re the most at risk.
Oops Taiji caught and killed an endangered species! Solution: Don’t report it and maybe no one will notice!
At first I was apathetic, but after looking at the facts, dolphin hunting hurts Japan and it’s neighbours the most.

School kids on the other hand shouldn’t be served meat with “16 times more mercury than the ministry’s accepted level.” Or “12 times more methyl mercury than is deemed acceptable.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/05/japan.justinmccurry

That just seems wrong to me.

Here are the effects of mercury by the way.
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/effects.htm#meth

“For fetuses, infants, and children, the primary health effect of methylmercury is impaired neurological development.”

But you’re right, why stop that…let’s clean the ocean first.

And if they really care about the environment and the dolphins, they should clean up the sea so that dolphins can live free of mercury, rather than leaving dolphins suffering from mercury.

However, while I find what goes on in most Islamic countries to be reprehensible, I could care less what they do within the boundaries of their own country. That is not the same as saying it is OK. It is not OK and I would not tolerate it where I live and would not allow any of the blessed sons of Mohammed to move to my country and carry on as if he was back at home just because it is his “culture” – we aren’t on his turf anymore. His rules do not apply in my house. My rules do not apply in his.

If the guy next door thought you were a complete asshat would you tolerate his coming into your house and telling you so? And would he tolerate you going into his house and telling him to stop calling you an asshat within his house? The answer to both of those questions should be “no”.

If Australians find hunting dolphins to be so wrong, then they should not hunt dolphins. Nor should they allow Japanese to hunt dolphins in Australia.

BTW, You know Chinese eat monkey ?

Hey, it’s the protestors’ culture to criticize the dolphin hunts, so let them do it!

If it’s in my culture to kill you because I disagree with your culture, should you let me? After all, cultural traditions reign supreme in the new world (dis)order.

All this cultural equivalence/relevance stuff is lunacy.

People should stand up for what they believe in. And people you don’t agree with them shouldn’t play this PC, wishy-washy, gutless, nonsensical ‘culture’ card.

See, what gets me about this argument is that pigs, which are one of the most widely eaten animals, are pretty damn intelligent and yet no one bats an eye. Pigs are most definitely smarter than dogs, and yet dogs are a no-no since they’re pets but pigs are fair game.

Cows are sacred to Hindus, and pigs are considered filthy animals unfit to eat by Jews and Muslims. Dogs, cats and horsies are domesticated in the West, but don’t be culturally myopic enough to assume that this means the whole world feels this makes them untouchable – given the above, your dietary habits probably don’t jive with 1/4 to 1/3 of the world’s population either.

Personally I’ve tried whale and didn’t really think it was that good, but if they’re hunted in responsible numbers then I don’t see how any carnivore/omnivore can complain about whale/dolphin/horse/dog/etc. meat without feeling at least slightly hypocritical.

Now if you’re vegan then that’s another story, but I’m still going to disagree with you on the grounds that meat tastes good.

Your excuses sound the same as the Americas made in the 1800′s about Buffalo hunting. “What, there’s zillions, there’s no way our hunting parties can make a dent in their numbers”.