Dolphins are being slaughtered everyday in Taiji creating a red lake of their blood. About 20,000 dolphins are being killed in Taiji everyday between September to March. Dolphin hunting is wrong and should be stopped. This is because dolphins have much more mercury level than regular meat, they are killed in an inhumane way and dolphins get stressed out and kill themselves when there captured. Dolphin meat, which is sold in Japan, contains high level of mercury, which could be dangerous. According to the movie, The Cove it states when people eat dolphin meat there neuron in their brain becomes shorter and their memory and hearing becomes worse over a period of time. In addition, dolphin meat-when eaten-can cause birth mutations and diseases. Dolphin meat has way more mercury level than regular meat. Dolphin meat has a level of 2000 ppm and regular meat has a level of 0.4 ppm, that’s a huge difference! In Taiji, “people say dolphins are cute and smart, but some regions have a tradition of eating dolphin meat, said Toshinori Uoya, a fisheries official.” (page 2 paragraph 16 McCurry) Dolphins are killed in an inhumane way. We think dolphins are killed in an instant but they die in 2 minutes or more! (dieing in a painful way) “It’s a horrific way to kill them, even if they let the dolphins go, the structure of the dolphin group will be disturbed (page 1 paragraph 4 le and horrie). When dolphins are caught and trapped by the fisherman, they will surround the dolphins, thrash them around and butcher the dolphins in the

following morning. Dolphins get stressed out and kill themselves, they do suicide. Ric O' Barry had a dolphin named flipper and that dolphin got stressed out of being trapped and can’t move in far distances. Flipper looked one last stare at Ric O' Barry dived into the water and never came back up for air-flipper did suicide. That’s when Ric O' Barry started to be against dolphin drives. When a fisherman is trying to