Two captive bottlenose dolphins in the Taiji harbour pens
Photo Credit Sea Shepherd Cove Guardians
For the Dolphins!!
Cetaceans
Minds in the Water … Another must see!
Minds in the Water – 5 years in the making, Minds In The Water is the story of one surfer’s international journey to help protect dolphins, whales and their ocean environment. Shot on location in Australia, the Galapagos, Chile and Japan, the film captures a key moment in one person’s life when apathy is no longer an option. Pro surfer Dave Rastovich went from observer to activist when he embarked on a personal mission to help stop the worldwide commercial slaughter of dolphins and whales. While unsure at first, Rasta quickly found his activist sea legs and helped build a core team of filmmakers, journalists, musicians, eco-pirates and celebrity surfers to help spread the message. All this has been documented in the film, Minds In The Water. (Source)
Powerful Message from a Grieving Dolphin
Whale watchers aboard Captain Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari had an unexpected and heartbreaking encounter with a pod of bottlenose dolphins yesterday. A deceased dolphin calf was being carried by an adult bottlenose dolphin on its back.
This video sends a powerful message and it is a window into a dolphins heart. This animal is laboring under the strain of carrying the deceased calf on its back and is probably keeping it near the surface so the departed dolphin can breathe. Dolphins do not normally swim with their dorsal fins sticking out of the water continuously like this bottlenose did. This poor grieving mother dolphin takes us, without words, to a place where as one of our passengers said in the video “humans and dolphins are not so different.”
The pair were surrounded by other dolphins, almost as if they were being protected, during this profoundly sad time. The dolphin was seen an hour later by another boat still carrying the calf.
For the dolphins!
Sharks, A Whale & Eco-Pirate – Must see documentaries!
Sharkwater: For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth. riven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas. Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world’s shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
The Whale: tells the true story of a young, wild killer whale – an orca – nicknamed Luna, who lost contact with his family on the coast of British Columbia and turned up alone in a narrow stretch of sea between mountains, a place called Nootka Sound. Orcas are social. They live with their families all their lives. An orca who gets separated usually just fades away and dies. Luna was alone, but he didn’t fade away. There weren’t any familiar orcas in Nootka Sound, but there were people, in boats and on the shore. So he started trying to make contact. And people welcomed him. Most of them. This contact did not turn out to be simple. It was as if we humans weren’t ready for him. THE WHALE celebrates the life of a smart, friendly, determined, transcendent being from the other world of the sea who appeared among us like a promise out of the blue: that the greatest secrets in life are still to be discovered.
Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson: “Eco-Pirate” tells the story of a man on a mission to save the planet and its oceans. The film follows professional radical ecologist, Captain Paul Watson as he repeatedly flouts the law, so that he may apprehend what he sees as the more serious law-breakers: the illegal poachers of the world. Using verité sequences shot aboard his ship as a framing device, the documentary examines Watson’s personal history as an activist through archival footage and interviews, while revealing the impact of this relentless pursuit on his personal life. From the genesis of Greenpeace to sinking a pirate whaling ship off Portugal, and from clashes with fisherman in the Galapagos to Watson’s recent headline-grabbing battles with the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica, the film chronicles the extraordinary life of the most controversial figure in the environmental movement; the heroics, the ego, the urgency of the world’s original eco-pirate.
For the oceans!
Thought for the Day
“I know that some members of the captivity industry have made the point that in captivity these animals are fed fish and they don’t need to deal with the stress of capturing their own prey. But in fact, being fed dead fish can be a stress. In the wild, they really enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with each other and catch prey and travel with their companions, and basically work for their prey. In captivity, all of that stimulation is taken away. There is a lot of scientific evidence that shows that dolphins and whales — both wild-born and captive-born — exhibit a lot of psychological abnormalities in captivity.” Lori Marino. Behavioral neuroscientist at Emory University
What the Captive Marine Mammal Industry Doesn’t Want You to See!
Here are three films the captive marine mammal industry does not want you to see!
The Cove: Using state-of-the-art equipment, a group of activists, led by renowned dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry, infiltrate a cove near Taijii, Japan to expose both a shocking instance of animal abuse and a serious threat to human health.
A Fall From Freedom: The first comprehensive film to reveal the long and sordid history of the captive whale and dolphin entertainment business. Many of these marine parks and aquariums are directly or indirectly responsible for the death of thousands of the very animals they use for public entertainment. Premature deaths. Trainer injuries. Illegal practices. Educational misrepresentation. Government incompetence. Secret deals. These and many other issues are presented, and documented for the first time in this powerful documentary, narrated by actor Mike Farrell.
Blackfish: Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish shows the sometimes devastating consequences of keeping such intelligent and sentient creatures in captivity.
Wild & Free vs. Captivity & Imprisonment
In the wild vs. in captivity ( information credited to – the Animal Welfare Institute http://awionline.org )
| In The Wild… | In Captivity… |
|---|---|
| Each day, dolphins travel up to 40 miles and orcas travel up to 100, feeding and socializing with other members of their pods. Pods can contain hundreds of individuals with complex social bonds and hierarchies. | Cetaceans are housed in small concrete or glass enclosures with no chance to swim for very long or dive deep distances.
Sometimes they are housed alone without opportunities for socialization, or they are forced to be with other animals and even species with whom they would not naturally have close contact. |
| Dolphins are naturally energetic, playful and inquisitive. | When tasked with entertaining tourists all day, with nowhere to escape, dolphins often become bored, frustrated and aggressive. |
| Cetaceans spend approximately 80-90% of their time under water. They have the freedom to perform natural behaviors on their own terms. | Dolphins are forced to perform artificial activities such as “walking” on water, jumping through hoops, and nodding their heads on cue. |
| Whales and dolphins eat a variety of fish, squid and octopi species, as well as smaller mammals.
Orcas and others work in groups, utilizing complex strategies to locate their prey. Some dive thousands of feet in search of food sources. |
The animals are given a staple diet of dead fish, often as positive reinforcement during training, with no opportunities to utilize their sophisticated hunting techniques. |
| Cetaceans live in complex societies with their own cultures and dialects, maintaining close family ties with grandparents, aunts and uncles. Some remain in the same pods for life. | Individuals are violently removed from the wild, with no hope of ever being reunited with their families. Captive animals are withheld forever from the wild gene pool. |
| Whales and dolphins live in a world of sound.
They rely on echolocation as their main form of communication and use sound to find mates, migrate, communicate, stay at or return to a favored feeding area, nurse, care for young, and catch and escape prey. |
Animals are forced to listen to filtration systems, pumps, music and people clapping and yelling on a regular basis.
Their concrete and/or glass enclosures also manipulate sounds, so even if two individuals are housed together, their communication is warped. |
| Cetaceans are surrounded by other sea life and are an integral part of the marine food web.
Whales and dolphins have evolved for millions of years in the oceans, and in most cases, they are the top predators. |
Artificial captive environments are sterile and lack stimulation. The animals’ water is chemically treated with chlorine – though they still suffer from bacterial infections that can be deadly.
The highly chlorinated water can also cause irritation and even blindness. |
- Activities like beaching themselves in aquatic shows contrast with dolphins in the wild that never would beach themselves. Scientists believe that this is extremely harmful because dolphins resting on their bellies over a hard surface, will eventually damage their internal organs.
- By withholding food, some trainers coerce dolphins into repetitive and unnatural behaviours, performing ‘tricks’ for the public. Hunger forces the dolphins to ignore their most basic natural instincts. They are even trained to beach themselves, despite the danger of doing so.
- The mortality rates and abnormal behaviours of captive dolphins prove that a lack of stimulation causes them terrible stress. Swimming listlessly in circles is just one common indictor of boredom and psychological distress.
- Space is also an issue – pools are miserably small for large, far ranging animals that would swim up to 50 miles a day in the wild. The shallow waters expose dolphins’ delicate skin to painful sunburns.
- Dolphins in the wild spend approximately 80% of their time deep below the surface exploring the depths of the ocean. The need for continuous movement of Wild dolphins is one of the reasons that critics of captivity are using as arguments to request the release of dolphins in captivity.
- Many dolphins do not survive the trauma of capture. Of those that do, 53% die within three months of confinement. Captive dolphins also suffer and die from intestinal disease, stress-related illness and chlorine poisoning.
- ‘Swim with dolphins’ programmes cannot guarantee the safety of people interacting with dolphins, even those bred in captivity. These powerful animals are often stressed from being in a confined space. Unsurprisingly, accounts of deliberate and inadvertent human injuries caused by captive dolphins include broken limbs.
- Dolphins in captivity are not trained, they are conditioned to perform “tricks” from being starved and only fed twice daily and generally only when performing “tricks”
A very informative video about Dolphin & Whale captivity.
After watching this video – Take the Pledge Not to Buy a Ticket to a Dolphin Show – click here
Opertation Infinite Patience 2012-2013
To read the most recent and past Cove Guardian reports please click here
Facebook – Sea Shepherd Cove Guardians
Twitter – @CoveGuardians
Email – coveguardian@seashepherd.org if you are interested in becoming a Cove Guardian for next season
For the dolphins!
Thought for the Day – Captivity
“What’s wrong with captivity? The capture, bring them into a concrete chlorinated box, reducing them to circus clowns and then selling this as educational to the public. And I think it’s extremely dangerous. This issue for me is not just about the dolphins. There’s about a thousand in captivity and it’s more about the millions of people who go and see the show, go and see Shamu. They’re learning, it is educational, they’re learning, however, that it’s okay to abuse nature. That’s what they come away with that these – it only serves – the Shamu experience or the captivity experience only serves to perpetuate our insidious, utilitarian perception of nature and it’s an issue about education. To teach a child not to step on a caterpillar or a butterfly is as important to the child as it is the butterfly. And that’s what’s wrong with it.“ – Ric O’Barry
Please click here for more information on Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project
Voice For The Blue 