Tradition

It’s tradition.

Kind of like Female Genital Mutilation, Fraternity Hazing, Cannibalism, Bull Fighting, Dog Fighting, Human and Animal Sacrifice, Slavery, Stoning.

It’s tradition, so it’s ok.

Today approximately 250 bottlenose dolphins met with tradition. After being herded into a tiny cove, and terrorized for several days, the last of the dolphins were dispatched by “fishermen” (dolphins are NOT fish btw) who drove metal rods into their blowholes. The rods are intended to sever their spinal cords and cause them to die either due to blood loss, or from drowning in their own blood. The process takes about half an hour.

The water is bright red in that tiny cove. The dolphins’ screams are silenced one by one. No help comes.

Within hours the flesh is being served in restaurants whose patrons apparently prefer their food sentient.

Ironically the flesh is toxic. Being at the top, well almost the top, of the food chain means that large amounts of poisonous substances such as mercury accumulate in their bodies.

Some choices we make are ethically or morally ambiguous. Some are not. This situation makes it clear that “Tradition” is not a justification for actions that are hideously, brutally, cruel and unnecessary. I will not say it is “unthinkable”, because it is not only quite thinkable but also actionable to some. I will not say “inhumane” because time and again we see that it is only humans who are capable of such innovative horrors.

These “fishermen” are not going to starve without this blood circus. They live in a wealthy modern nation. It saddens me to think that they just enjoy it, and do not want to change.

Perhaps we could pay them to stop, as we do with all sorts of evils, from sadistic dictators to polluters to those who burn rain-forests. It does not always work. They might simply move on to new “traditions” like puppy barbecues, manufacturing kitten mittens or canning pulverized songbirds. At the very least an offer of compensation might force them to admit that they just enjoy the killing.