Captivity Kills

Our attention to animal cruelty is often limited. We primarily focus on dogs and horses – maybe cats. We might stress over elephants being mercilessly slaughtered for their tusks, but that’s happening in Africa, too far away to really ensnare our deepest feelings. 

PETA keeps us informed of vicious farm workers who brutalize cows, pigs, and chickens causing some to become vegetarians for humanitarian reasons. But basically, in this country we are probably moved the most by the wrong done to dogs and horses. However, the number of people worldwide who are concerned about whales and dolphins is escalating dramatically.

Not everyone realizes that the killer whale (orca) is actually a very, very large dolphin. So when we fume over the slaughter of whales by the Japanese, the Icelanders, the Faroe Island whale hunters, we tend to forget about the merciless slaughter, sale, and captivity of dolphins primarily by the Japanese.

 The Japanese look to be the most brutal killers of whales and dolphins. Regularly the fishermen go on roundups of dolphins, forcing them into Taiji Bay, the notorious killing pen featured in the film The Cove. Often youngsters are separated from their mothers. Some die from shock. Many are killed by the fishermen driving a metal pin into their necks. They slaughter so many the bay runs red with their blood. This is barbarism and animal cruelty at its worst. The dolphins who are not killed are sold – the going price is around $32,000.

Who entitled these people to capture an intelligent mammal and sell it? Where is that mammal’s right to exist in its environment, free from enslavement?

Phoenix, Arizona, is the home to Dolphinaris. This desert aquarium featuring dolphins opened several years ago, despite avid protest about the stupidity and cruelty of not only imprisoning dolphins in a tank, but in keeping them in the desert. Who could possibly be surprised that four of the dolphins have already died in captivity? Only the operators of Dolphinaris are bewildered.

The last two weeks have seen the death of a young orca held captive in Orlando’s Sea World and the death of another dolphin in an aquarium in Phoenix, Arizona. But don’t worry: the Sea World organization still has 20 orcas to keep them in business for a spell, and recent news is that the company that leases dolphins have taken the remaining live dolphins back from Phoenix’s Dolphinaris. Likely they’ll just send these hapless, intelligent, friendly, caring mammals to be held captive in another tank in another city. And besides, the Japanese will capture many more if these die.