Brazilian Fishermen Kill 83 Dolphins, Joke About It
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 07.18.07
Photo credit: neforum
You'd better back away from your monitor because we're going to be sick, and it's not going to be pretty. Another primo example of human asshattery: A crew of Brazilian fishermen was caught on camera slaughtering 83 dolphins and then joking about their very illegal haul, according to Brazil's Ibama environmental protection agency.
The video, which was obtained by an undercover Ibama researcher and broadcast by the country's Globo TV, showed the fishermen netting the dolphins off the coast of Amapa state, near the point where the Amazon River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Because the famously social and human-friendly marine mammals couldn't surface to breathe, they suffocated.
As the dolphins were hauled up onto the boat's deck, the fishermen on board laughed after someone said, "Everyone's going to jail after this filming!" Charges have not been filed because authorities are still trying to identify the parties involved, says Globo TV.
Details about the video are still hazy—it's not clear whether the researcher or a crew member filmed the dolphins being killed, although Ibama confirmed the story.
According to the network, fishermen who illegally capture dolphins usually sell the meat to other boats as shark bait, while complete dolphin jaws are hawked in an open air market in the large Amazon city of Belem. Their eyes are also plied as fetishes to men who believe they have magical powers to attract financial riches and women. Dolphins penises are ground into a powder thought to make men more virile.
"Brazil has strict laws to protect whales and dolphins in their waters, and they are very clearly being abused," says Claire Bass, program manager for marine mammals with the London-based World Society for the Protection of Animals. "Using nets to kill these extremely sociable and intelligent animals by drowning them is completely diabolical."
In Brazil, killing dolphins is a crime punishable by up to 1.5 years in prison—not even close to what we had in mind, but Ibama is working on a plan to ban fishing in the areas where those dolphins were killed.
The nation also faces problems with the killing of river dolphins harpooned in the Amazon River for use as bait, Bass says. The dolphins are wounded and then tied to trees while they're still alive. "Then they come and kill them for the bait as and when they need it," Bass says.
That's it, we're seceding from the human race. Again. :: Chicago Tribune
See also: :: Dolphin-Friendly Radisson Cruises, :: Shipping Lanes Make Way for Dolphins, and :: Pink Dolphins at Risk
This is almost as good as what the Japanese do during the fall season and the dolphin migration with their bloody slaughter. When will the world realize that humans don't need to eat animal products to survive.
Since we're learning more and more about the economic value of biodiversity, perhaps the sentence for this crime can be jacked up a bit, to be more commensurate with the damage done.
I want to cry
It makes me very sad that people can live with themselves after doing so much harm to helpless animals
Humans suck. If any species ever deserved going extinct it would be us. We do nothing, as a whole, positive towards our environment. I'll show more compasion for a dolphin before I would a human any day.
They use dolphin body parts as an aphrodisiac? Mabe the "men" who did this have good cause to doubt their manhood. Shame on them, they are sickening.
What about the killing of dolphins that actually sickens us?
Is it their intelligence, or that they breath air like us, and unlike fish?
Is it that their skeletal structure is more similar to ours and so they "retch" more like humans and don't "flop" like fish that are dying and we associate with their pain better?
Clearly a gruesome act of environmental damage, but arresting one boat of fishermen won't change the world.
From what I could find out (I'm brazilian), IBAMA just said they have the information to identify the boats and people involved, and that they will be punished.
i'd like to know why it's illegal to kill dolphins in Brazil in the first place.. the article didn't mention this. are they endangered? is it because they are less nice than pigs? Pigs are very playful, loving animals. A lot of people like pigs. why do they draw the line at dolphins? is it going to be just us and the dolphins in 60 years? will we feed them from our fish farms? just to support our system of biological favouritism, based on ...charisma? or perhaps it's a politics thing.. they're at the top of the food chain but they don't attack us... for god's sake don't start a war with the dolphins.... we've got enough enemies already... same goes for the trees... ..only other possibility I can think of is that we're really trying to empty the oceans as quickly as possible, and have chosen to accelerate that process by killing less top-level predators. hmm.. turns out that amazon river dolphins are endangered. wonder why the writer didn't mention this?
also, contradictory to what was stated in an earlier paragraph, the dolphins weren't "filmed being killed", they were filmed being dead: "Because the... mammals couldn't surface to breathe, they suffocated." The article didn't mention if they were killed on purpose or not, and the only actual statement within the text of the article that seems to be attempting to validate the headline's implications of sadism could just as easily be interpreted as an expression of a lack of confidence in the government's ability to enforce its own laws. Not that Brazil is particularly well-respected for having an ordered, law-abiding society.
Why didn't the journalist dig a little deeper to see if the EPA had a valid claim or not? Apparently the video was at least partially available. Going by what's written in the article, this could quite possibly have been a case of a pod of dolphins getting trapped in a net left there for some fish, perhaps salmon as they are known to inhabit rivers at particular times of the year.
If this is the case, rather than jailing some fishermen for laughing off their government's ineptitude, it might be more effective to change the policies that dictate what methods can be used to catch fish.
Or perhaps do something about the false demand for the fish... after all, why, in this day and age, are there still people who believe that snorting, or whatever, dolphin penises will make them more virile? if they could just get some reverse-engineered, black-market viagra out there, this problem would be solved: less endangered dolphins would be killed, men would become educated as to what real artificial virility is [sic], more children would be born .... oh, wait....
But there yet rests a perhaps more pressing question: Why is the public satisfied with journalism that provides primarily bias, inaccuracy, and heartwrenching adjectives in place of real information?
I think the report first should make sure the information authentic,after all,false or unthentic information always mislead its readers,we can't have something done simply according to our emotion impulsed by reading incorrect report,,this is the first.secondly,we should recognize although as human being we should act immediately to protect the nature including animal of any kinds at this age,we also should make full use of nature surrounding us.But we can't make our manhood full of evils especially to the adorable dolphin who is our friend and should with us enjoy this nice world along with other animals and even plants.Up to now,human really should think reversely about our behavior impacted on the nature seriously.Indeed now.
I hate it
It's just cruel and not right at all
in fact the people that did this disgusting and wrong deed really should be killed
i really think they should die a cruel way too
let them in the ocean and see if they survive out their while their being chased by a boat or whatever lurking animal or fish is out there. yahhhhhhhhhhh they should do that to them scalywges.
yeah, lets kill all the cute fuzzy dolphins because we won't have any room to swim in the ocean if there be so many of dem....My boyfriend Andy needs a LOT of room..and deoderant.