Click here to watch The Cove

At first I questioned the credibility of the documentary, but if you search it up, you'll find that it is real. The footage is real. Just do a Wikipedia search or w/e.

Personally, I don't think it's propaganda. I think it's disgusting. If one wants to bring up the argument, "We eat cows and pigs and sheep and stuff. What so different with what they're doing?" Well it's pretty obvious: we rear these animals for slaughter. We don't just go find wild cows and prune them out of the ecosystem. As a result, this isn't disrupting the natural balance. But this mass slaughter of dolphins is just horrible. And the thing is, most of it isn't even for consumption!

Using wild animals for our amusement (Marine Land, the circus, w/e) just goes to show how selfish and self-centred out race has become. Yes I believe there's a scala naturae, but that doesn't involve captivity of species lower than oneself in the food chain just for amusement. That's just inhumane...

Oh wait, that is humane.

Opinions?

To be fair, it's rather difficult to rear dolphins. And we still allow them to live a normal enjoyable life up to when they are killed, unlike what we do to livestock that we more or less keep in captivity their entire lives before we slaughter them. On that topic it's kind of hard to 'prune down wild cows' because we domesticated them and messed up the natural balance of things.

Now imagine what happens to the town in the cove if hunting dolphins was outlawed, they more or less lose the backbone of the town's economy, and you'll always have a hard time convincing people that the lives of dolphins are more important than the well being of humans.

Sure it would great if dolphin hunting stopped, but frankly it's not that big a deal when compared to any other slaughter of animals. I mean it's not like the dolphins are extremely endangered as a result of this. We've done way worse things to fish, but no one feels bad for the fish.

Originally Posted by SilentWalker

Opinions?

I didnt watch the vid or read anything about it, but I know me, and watching it won't change my stance:

Dolphin is yummy.

Originally Posted by reeves

I didnt watch the vid or read anything about it, but I know me, and watching it won't change my stance:

Dolphin is yummy.

Man, if you think dolphin is yummy, have I got a video for you...

Originally Posted by Replekia

To be fair, it's rather difficult to rear dolphins. And we still allow them to live a normal enjoyable life up to when they are killed, unlike what we do to livestock that we more or less keep in captivity their entire lives before we slaughter them. On that topic it's kind of hard to 'prune down wild cows' because we domesticated them and messed up the natural balance of things.

Now imagine what happens to the town in the cove if hunting dolphins was outlawed, they more or less lose the backbone of the town's economy, and you'll always have a hard time convincing people that the lives of dolphins are more important than the well being of humans.

Sure it would great if dolphin hunting stopped, but frankly it's not that big a deal when compared to any other slaughter of animals. I mean it's not like the dolphins are extremely endangered as a result of this. We've done way worse things to fish, but no one feels bad for the fish.

+1

There are also issues with attempting to transition the economy of these places to other things, mainly because the less places hunt dolphins, the rarer and more expensive dolphin materials get and the more lucrative it is to hunt them. It's the same problem we've been having for decades with people hunting Rhinos and Elephants in Africa and India.

Simple explanation is that we rear animals due to our agricultural lifestyle. Thousands of years ago, we settled down and started growing our own food (planting crops and raising farm animals), and we've been that way ever since.

Our previous lifestyle was nomadic, and hunter-gatherer, which meant we moved from place to place to find food. The benefit is that the places we leave behind eventually restore themselves, allowing us to head back after a few years.

The problem now is that our population is way too large to support hunter-gatherer lifestyles. We're basically stuck in this agricultural system. The only solution is a reduction of our population, which either means genocide, or reduced breeding like the 'one-child policy'. However, everyone gets irate when their rights are being infringed upon, even if it's for the good of the whole. It boils down to this: no one likes to make personal sacrifices.

not like the dolphins are extremely endangered as a result of this

I think they are, i googled dolphins and endangered and it seems they are.
I know sharks are endangered.

Originally Posted by LukeEngineer

I think they are, i googled dolphins and endangered and it seems they are.
I know sharks are endangered.

They were classified as endangered due to massive population loss at fault of pollution and warming waters. The japanese dolphin hunts are no more or less extreme than fishing off the banks of newfoundland. People just feel worse because dolphins are cute.

It's kind of like how people are against seal clubbing, but noone would care if it were turtles being clubbed. How cute an animal is generally is a good indicator of how much we care if it dies.

ah yes the cuteness scale.

As I say if you are killing an animal for any other reason besides eating it you';re doing something wrong.

Originally Posted by Replekia

They were classified as endangered due to massive population loss at fault of pollution and warming waters. The japanese dolphin hunts are no more or less extreme than fishing off the banks of newfoundland. People just feel worse because dolphins are cute.

It's kind of like how people are against seal clubbing, but noone would care if it were turtles being clubbed. How cute an animal is generally is a good indicator of how much we care if it dies.

... Turtles aren't cute? You're a monster.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

... Turtles aren't cute? You're a monster.

Less cute than seals. I just couldn't think of an ugly animal of the top of my head...

Originally Posted by Replekia

Less cute than seals. I just couldn't think of an ugly animal of the top of my head...

The single ugliest animal that exists on this planet is the blob fish... would anyone really be angry if it were being clubbed?

http://www.itsnature.org/sea/fish/blob-fish/

Originally Posted by Replekia

Less cute than seals. I just couldn't think of an ugly animal of the top of my head...

I'll love him.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

The single ugliest animal that exists on this planet is the blob fish... would anyone really be angry if the were being clubbed?

http://www.itsnature.org/sea/fish/blob-fish/

I'll love it.
I don't think it's ugly at all.

People only care about this because dolphins are cute. Maybe cows would be endangered too if we didn't artificially grow and feed them and same goes for other animals we eat here.

Originally Posted by jo87

People only care about this because dolphins are cute. Maybe cows would be endangered too if we didn't artificially grow and feed them and same goes for other animals we eat here.

That's the point (edited by moderator). We can justify mass slaughter of cows because we rear them specifically for that purpose. Fisheries do the same for the majority of the fish on the market. Pigs, goat, chicken, turkey...we all farm them for slaughter. It is not affecting the natural population as they are isolated from the rest of the food chain (except for corn and wheat, used for feed).

When you bring an animal like dolphins (and seals, and turtles), whose numbers are based solely on how well they can survive in the wild (and trust me, they'd do pretty darn well if humans weren't around), you throw off the balance when you introduce artificial selection.

The order of being is there to keep the balance between all members of the food chain (higher organisms prey on lower ones, but the population of the lower ones regulate the population of the higher ones). That's why it's called NATURAL selection. When you put humans into the equation, who do such mass slaughter for reasons other than food, you throw the whole system off balance.

It happened with the dodo, Tasmanian tiger, Capsian tiger, Chinese river dolphin, and so many others, and it is happening right now, with the sudden increase in the number of species on the brink of extinction being almost 40% of all living species. The majority of that is due to selfish human actions, not for food, but rather hunting and harvesting for fur, ivory, or just because the animal is rare and is worth a lot.

If you watched the documentary, you'd know that the main purpose for harvesting for dolphins isn't for food. It's for trade to water-parks, where one live dolphin can cost well over US $200,000. It's not fuelling Japan's economy, it's the fishermen.

And for those of you saying that, 'Oh they only focus on dolphins'. Are you guys serious? The topic is about the documentary The Cove, which so happened to focus on dolphins because the main activist was the guy was the dolphin trainer for the all-too-popular movie Flipper. Flipper died, in his hands, and that's what caused him to become an activist. Why don't you guys get a PhD in every field there is to get a PhD in? You only specialize in one field, and there are others who specialize in other fields. Similarly, there are also efforts to save many other endangered species. It's not that they're abandoning other species. Just because one group doesn't do it doesn't mean they're wrong.