Animal Rights & The Cove

After watching The Cove in class, I was surprised and appalled.  Thousands of innocent dolphins are slaughtered each year in Japan for their meat.  The saddest part is that very little of the Japanese population know these slaughters are occurring.  The fishermen involved drive the dolphins into a secret cove that is surrounded by natural rock on three sides.  Within this secret cove, massive slaughters take place unknown to the public.  The Japanese government is highly involved in protecting the secret of these slaughters.  Dolphin meat is actually a less desirable meat compared to other cetaceans because dolphin meat is known for containing high mercury levels.  Instead, Japan falsely packages the dolphin meat as bigger cetacean meat so consumers think they are buying healthier meat and the fishermen make a profit.  Not only are these fishermen killing dolphins in mass amounts but they are also poisoning innocent people.  The Japanese government and the fishermen involved clearly know what they are doing is wrong which is why they work so hard to cover up the slaughters and keep the public away from the secret cove.  These dolphins are living beings just as humans are and they deserve to have rights.  The right to have their basic needs met, the right to protection, etc. In fact, all animals deserve to have these rights.  In order to stop these massive slaughters we need to educate people further about the situation occurring at this secret cove and the effects it could have in the future.  Killing dolphins at such a fast rate is not sustainable and the dolphin population will quickly deplete.  We need to give these dolphins their rights back and stop dolphin slaughters in Japan.