March against captivity and slaughter of dolphins

Today was the second protest I've been to, the first was in November. There were over a thousand people in our London superpod. We marched from Cavendish Square to Trafalgar Square where there were speeches. It was heartwarming to see so many passersby clapping and cheering our cause. That's the most important thing, getting the word out.

What was it all about? Every year from September to March a group of hunters in Taiji, Japan hunt dolphins. They force them into a small cove where the relatively young and prettiest dolphins are removed from their family for a life in captivity. That's after they watch their mothers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters and cousins brutally murdered in front of them. The babies in the family, too small for meat and too young to survive on their own, are dumped back out at sea. Some of the captured dolphins don't survive the trauma. Many have to be drugged and force fed in the days following their ordeal due to the extreme stress. Many more die during transport to aquariums in tiny wooden crates over many days. The ones that survive will be forced to do tricks in return for dead fish, while routinely being fed anti-psychotic drugs to keep them performing. They will live less than half the number of years as their counterparts in the wild.

Appalled? Want to know what you can do about it? Stop buying tickets to dolphin shows and swim with dolphin experiences. Your money is supporting the slaughter of tens of thousands of dolphins every year. The dolphin that you are delighted to see balancing a ball on its nose in a tiny tank may well have swam in the blood of its murdered family.