Shocking new Images from the Death Cove are making Waves
Latest news from Taiji
By Hans Peter Roth - WDCS rep on the ground
Shocking new Images from the Death Cove are making Waves
The close-ups are unbelievable. Both in what they are showing and in their quality. One video shows from striking distance how pacific white-sided dolphins where beastly slaughtered. One of the dolphin hunters drives a sharp spike into the back of a dolphin and pokes around in the body. After he extracted the spike from the body he rams a wooden plug into the wound, so that no blood flows out, which could turn the death cove red.
This 'new' way of killing is labeled as 'humane' by the Japanese Ministry of Fisheries. It’s said that the hunter cuts through the spinal cord of the animal and that the dolphins would die instantly. Another cynical lie.
The animal shown in the close-up is still alive, obviously for several long minutes. It even manages to break loose from the rope. This barbaric torture hardly ever kills instantly, as the recordings show. Several sequences, published at different points of time, show the cruelty from different perspectives and are of different origins, where all shot within January 2011.
The owner of the shocking close-ups is the German NGO Atlantic Blue. How they got the video is however left open. This gives leeway to rumors...
Cross cutting sequences in the same video, shot from a different perspective are showing that the black curtains, which are normally used by the fishermen to hide the massacre, were partly left open on the day the video was filmed. A strange 'coincident'… In the meantime, even 'The Sun', England's major daily newspaper, issued the video. (Attention: heavy and disturbing stuff!) As a consequence of the publication, local watchmen, police officers and coast guards once more intensified the measures of safety and observation around the cove. More about this disturbing 'milestone' in the next update.
Hans Peter Roth
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