Taiji Take Two: Another day, another slaughter

Apologies for not getting my blog out last night. It was a very difficult night for me, having to deal with two slaughter and capture days in a row, and the stress got the better of me. I started to write last night, but I fell asleep before I finished.

Now I shall just pass on my Save Japan Dolphins report, and will blog again later today :)

After yesterday's slaughter, one might think that the dolphin killers of Taiji would take today off, but greed never rests.  Only 10 banger boats went out this morning, but they were successful in finding yet another pod of Risso's dolphins.  They drove them into the harbor entrance, but they were unable to drive the whole pod into the Cove in one swoop.  After pushing the first four through the entrance, they sealed the Cove off and went back for the rest of the group.

This turned out to be a very tough fight between the dolphins and dolphin killers; it was if the dolphins knew what fate waited for them around the corner.  Time and time again the nine Risso's managed to slip underneath the seven boats chasing them and make a mad dash for safety, but the speedy skiffs and banger boats were always able to maneuver around them and scare them back towards the Cove.  I was amazed how often I saw them leap completely out of the water – I know they had to have been absolutely exhausted at this point.  They were making an extremely valiant effort in the fight for their lives, but just couldn't find a safe route back to open water.  The fishermen were getting extremely frustrated with the chase as well.  We could hear it in their voices as they shouted to one another above the roaring engines and pole banging.  After about an hour of this, the fishermen had not gotten the dolphins any closer into the Cove, and finally they strung a net between two banger boats and encircled the pod, and basically dragged them in. Once the net separating them from the rest of their family was removed, they joined together in a tight group, terrified and exhausted, but together.

Just like yesterday, two skiffs of dolphin trainers arrived on scene to assess the catch.  Dolphin Base trainers left empty-handed, but another skiff of trainers towed one dolphin alongside in a sling to the harbor pens, where it joined the two captured in yesterday's drive hunt.  Hopefully they can find comfort in each other, now that they share a similar and tragic story.

The other twelve pod members were murdered and their bodies towed to the butcher house for processing and distribution.

All dolphins deserve to live.  We have absolutely no right to end their lives for any reason; however these ones seemed to deserve it a little more.  They fought bravely and gave their all in the effort to simply go on living in their ocean world, but in the end greed, money, and technology won.  Another innocent family was removed from our world, and one poor captive dolphin will forever be haunted by the memory of today.