My Food Activism Just Went International

But there is something I can do here and I urge anyone that's at all interested in our world to take part. I just finished watching The Cove. It's a documentary about the wholesale slaughter of dolphins in Japan. 23,000 dolphins a year to be exact.

Dolphins are at the same level as us in the marine food change. Because of this they are incredibly toxic. In Japan the government puts a limit on Mercury at 0.4 ppm. Dolphin meat is around 2,000 ppm. So why do people eat it? Most don't know it as it's purposely mislabeled as other types of whale meat that is generally considered safer. And they were considering feeding this mercury laden meat to those that are the most susceptible - children through their school lunches. So why even catch dolphins if they are so toxic?

It all starts because of the lucrative business of brokering dolphins to aquariums such as Sea World. A single dolphin can fetch $150,000.

After rounding up hundreds of dolphins trainers come out and pick out the ones they want to sell to training facilities. The rest are inhumanely slaughtered out of the view of everyone. The filmmakers - including Ric O'Barry who earned his fame through the TV show Flipper and has now renounced keeping Cetaceans in captivity -  risked everything to put up cameras around the cove where this happens.

I will no longer visit amusement parks that offer dolphin and killer whale shows. I no longer want to support this industry. Not only does it lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of animals that are possibly smarter than us, but the mere act of keeping dolphins in captivity is cruel and incredibly stressful on the animals - much like battery cages for hens.  The stress of captivity alone kills them regularly.

Sorry Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, I won't be taking my family there anymore. You were too expensive anyways.