Greetings all. Fast approaching is that famous time of year where families come together to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, and (yes that passed already, but still) the New Year. (Sorry for not mentioning the other holidays, happy whatever holiday you celebrate) The same can be said for myself, so this will probably be, barring any major news, the final blog until after Christmas. I'll do a big fat fun one before the end of the year kinda recapping my two campaigns. Anyway, here we go with some whale, shark, and dolphin information that may or may not come as a surprise to you.
As of this morning, the Japanese whaling fleet finally left Japan en route to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. This departure came less than 24 hours after the United States courts decided to tell Sea Shepherd Conservation Society not to interfere with the whaling operations. How the United States has any say over what four vessels registered in Australia and New Zealand that are in international waters is beyond me. Why the United States failed to look at the fact that Australia has a court order that is supposed to keep the Japanese whalers out of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The United States President was supposed to aid in seeing an end to whaling in the Southern Ocean, but so far he has not done that at all. Hope is far from lost though when it comes to saving the whales. Sea Shepherd remains 100% committed to securing the whale sanctuary and are not going to submit and allow the whaling to occur. They are currently waiting on board 4 ships, just waiting for the whalers to come in range. This year, the Japanese cut their quota in half. Throughout the course of the past two years, Sea Shepherd interference kept the Japanese from catching 50-75% of it's quota, so the reduction in quota does not come as a surprise to many. It is pretty safe to say that things in the Southern Ocean will soon heat up. I will do my best to share my views and major news on Sea Shepherd's Operation No Compromise. I won't be covering everything, but as whales are certainly something I strive to spread awareness about, I will certainly cover the more important things. For everything involving Operation No Compromise visit www.seashepherd.org
The cove was blue for the second straight day. Nearly all of the dolphins that were in the cove for 6 days were taken for a life in captivity. While these dolphins will be able to live, their lives have changed forever. Though I am for captivity, I am for responsible captivity. As far as I am concerned, any dolphin that is taken out of that cove in Taiji and sent to a marine park has no business being there. Any trainer who goes to the cove and selects and purchases one of those dolphins are one of the most irresponsible trainers in the world. They bear witness first hand to the brutality that occurs in the cove and do nothing about, say nothing about it, but hand money right over to the very people who simply will slaughter any of the dolphins left over. Safe to say these trainers really don't care for the dolphins themselves, rather they care for the money that they will bring to them in the future. There are many places that house dolphins that do it responsibly, using captive bred dolphins and even if they are from the wild, they do not come from the cove in Taiji. The real drive behind the slaughter is money of course. The amount of money the killers in Taiji make from selling a dolphin to a trainer is incredible. On the flip side, the market value of dolphin meat is very low. If the killers simply killed the dolphins, they would make very little money. It is the sale of live dolphins to trainers that keeps this slaughter going.
Shark protection continues to slowly pick up momentum, but the clock is still ticking on many species. Earlier this month, France created the largest shark sanctuary in the world for all of a few days! The sanctuary is located in the south Pacific. After just a few days, the Cook Islands created an even bigger shark sanctuary, a sanctuary that is roughly the size of Australia!!! French Polynesia also listed the mako, the last shark not protected in it's waters to it's protected list. Following in the footsteps of the United States, the European Union (EU), passed a vote to strengthen it's laws against shark finning. The EU did this by doing the same thing the US did, closing the loopholes in the laws by forcing all sharks that are landed to be landed in tact. As 2012 comes to a close, things are starting to look up for sharks. Time is still running out though. According to the WWF, roughly 73 million sharks are killed every year. More and more sharks are dying and due to their low reproduction rate, they are stepping closer and closer to extinction. Still though, things are starting to look up. 2012 thus far was a decent year for sharks, but there is still much work to be done.
Well there you have it folks, the last blog before Christmas. Thank you all again for reading, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it. I hope you all have a great holiday and I will hopefully blog again before the New Year. Just because I will not be blogging until after Christmas doesn't mean that Operation Sadistic Truths is on hold. I will continue to post news, photos, etc on Facebook as my work on there is a part of this operation to spread awareness to as many people as I can.
