Dolphin Flick

Honestly, when I first walked into watching this documentary I thought to myself, "great another tree-hugging, save the earth, make me feel bad about eating meat" kind of documentary. However, I must admit this documentary made an impression on me. I have always like dolphins. I grew up watching Flipper. Flipper shaped my view of dolphins. Overall, I think they are probably the most human-friendly mammals in existence. They say dogs are "man's best friend" but I think dolphins are a close second. I am a dolphin fan and I am certainly not talking about the NFL football team. I probably would not go as far as Ric Barry in saying that dolphins should not be in captivity of any sort because I think they are taken well care of in Sea World and other places where strict regulations are in place. Personally, I have been to Cozymel twice and I purposely did not "ride the dolphins" because number 1 it was too expensive and number 2 I don't think the dolphins were well taken care of. Therefore, I am agreement with Ric Barry in that many captivity situations are not good for dolphins but I am not willing to go so far to say that all captivity situations are bad for dolphins. However, I do think the coup de gras is the Taiji situation. After watching the footage I think the evidence is irrefutable that animal cruelty is definitely going on. I watched with my own eyes dolphins being rounded up for the slaughter. I think it is wrong. It is one thing to capture a dolphin for captivity but it is quite another to brutally slaughter one. This is where I believe Ric Barry presented his strongest argument in that dolphin meat is high in mercury and highly toxic. Honestly, I think this is the best thing he has going for him. According to his argument, Japanese fisherman were passing toxic dolphin meat off as other kind of meat like whale. If Japanese fisherman are brutally slaughtering dolphins and passing off their meat as something else then this is clearly wrong. I don't care if this is part of their culture and they have been doing it for hundreds of years. It is wrong! I think there are ethical values of right and wrong that transcend culture and deceiving people for a profit is wrong in any culture at any time. There is no sport and no honor in rounding up dolphins into shallow water just to spear them to death in some sort of "turkey shoot." It is cowardly and it is wrong. Admittedly, I agree that I must take Ric Barry at face value in terms of the whole mercury toxicity thing. At the same time I think he presented some convincing arguments with the two Japanese officials coming forward saying they don't want their kids eating dolphin meat. At this point the burden of proof is on the Japanese government and the Japanese people. They must convince me that this brutal and cowardly slaughter of dolphins is necessary and admittedly at this point I am not convinced.