Pest Control

When I think of pests, I usually think of roaches, rats, or mosquitoes. The Japanese government in the documentary The Cove called the slaughtering of dolphins pest control.
I have never had the privilege of swimming with dolphins, and after watching this documentary, I no longer have the urge to go to Sea World and play with the dolphins considering what the fisherman do to get them. I was horrified. Not just by the fact that they basically scare these dolphins into this lagoon to trap them, but the ones that dolphin trainers don't want, they brutally kill. Some of the scenes in the movie were just too horrid to even look at. I actually cried.
The Japanese government also decided to sell dolphin meat, which has toxic levels of mercury. They even decided to provide it in school lunches. So they kill intelligent beautiful animals that have been adored for saving people's lives and then sell the toxic meat to their people. I thought governments were supposed to protect people from harm.
Dolphins look like they have a permanent smile, but the leader of the movement to save them said that it was just a facade. Dolphins actually have a consciousness, and are aware of what is going on. They know they are in captivity and can actually become depressed. Dolphins cannot thrive in captivity. I learned that Dolphins have to actually make a conscious effort to breathe, unlike humans for which it is automatic. Ric, the trainer for Flipper, said that he believes Katy, the Dolphin's real name, committed suicide because she was so unhappy. She swam in his arms, looked in his eyes, took a breath and didn't take anymore. I thought that was awful and it broke my heart.
When they are being slaughtered, they know what is going on. Which is probably why they kill the dolphins trainers don't want; the government doesn't want them communicating with other dolphins not to go in the area where they can be easily caught.
I wish I could do more than just go to their website and sign a petition, but at least I feel like I am doing something. The interesting thing is that the Japanese people had no idea this was going on. They had no idea that poisonous Dolphin meat was being packaged and sold to them as whale meat. And the Japanese government is doing whatever they can to get the IWC to release the restrictions they already have on whale fishing.
I believe that people need to understand that we are all connected. Every living thing on this earth is connected in some way and the demise of a species, no matter how small it is, will lead to our demise. We may have "dominion" over plants and animals, but that doesn't mean we can do whatever we want. Why don't people realize that when our resources are depleted, our species will no longer exist. When you get a pet, in order for it to survive and thrive, you have to take care of it. Well we have to learn to look at the earth in a similar way. In order for the earth to continue to exist, we have to take care of it. We must remember, we are dependent on the earth, not the other way around. The earth can go on without us, but we cannot survive without it. The earth will continue to take care of us if we take care of it. And taking care of the earth includes animals.
This movie also made me think about consumption. One of the arguments the Japanese government made was that the dolphins were eating too many of the fish and depleting their resources. These are species of fish that were already depleting due to humans. We consume way too much. Despite the fact that they were using that argument to defend killing dolphins, it does bring up a good point. We consume more food than we actually need. Greed is going to destroy us; glutton is going to do the same. By showing respect for this planet, we are ultimately showing respect for ourselves.