At 8:30pm on Saturday, 27 March, lights will go out in homes, office buildings, town halls and public spaces across the globe – from the world’s tallest building in Dubai, to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge… and in YOUR living room!

Switch off your lights for one hour. That is all it takes for you to partipate along with millions of people in the single largest mass statement on climate change and be part of WWF’s Earth Hour.

Earth Hour is more than just turning off the lights for one hour once a year. When we do this together, when whole cities go dark, we send a strong message to our leaders about the threats of global warming and that we can work together to create a sustainable future for our planet.

Last year, 4,000 cities in 88 countries took part in the international celebration of darkness. This year you can help make it even bigger.

Join the Movement

The annual dolphin slaughter at Taiji, a town with a population of some 3,500 in the beautiful Yoshino Kumano Kokuritsu Koen national park, follows a regular pattern.

First, hunter boats from the Taiji Isana Union (numbering at most 13 skiffs, with two crewmen each) head out to sea and surround pods of dolphins or pilot whales (which are actually large dolphins). Then they drive them into a “capture cove” by banging on long metal bell-ended poles placed in the water to disrupt the dolphins’ sonar, causing them to become completely disorientated and panic.

After these animals have spent a night supposedly relaxing in the netted-off capture cove (in an attempt by the whalers to make their meat more tender), they are driven to the neighboring “killing cove.” There, behind huge blue tarps strung across the cove to keep prying eyes away — in much the same way that Japanese police cordon off crime scenes — the dolphins meet their gruesome predawn end.

It is a gory spectacle that Taiji has long striven to keep anyone from seeing — and one that is crucially fueled by the lucrative, worldwide dolphin captivity and display industry. Aquarium operators, some of whom have claimed to be saving dolphins’ lives by selecting a few as performers, pay up to $150,000 per animal.

The brutal selection process, though — as shown in the OPS footage — causes many of these highly intelligent marine mammals to die of shock or drown.

Meanwhile, cruelty apart, the government-sanctioned slaughter is widely condemned by Japanese scientists, activists and a few Taiji officials, who all cite the serious health issues related to consumption of the dolphins’ mercury-tainted meat.

Secret film reveals slaughter to the world

Covert operation finally exposes Taiji’s annual dolphin horror

The secret filming by members of the U.S. conservation group Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) — equipped with state-of-the-art technology and financed to the tune of $5 million by Netscape founder Jim Clark — is one of the most important ‘must see’ multi-award winning films ever made.

The story of how this film of the barbaric killing and subsequent butchering of dolphins was made — together with the resulting sale of their meat that massively exceeds Japanese and international limits for mercury content — is told here, exclusively, for the first time anywhere in print.

All our Governments and the IWC have proven to us all time and time again that they are never going to Save the Whales and the Dolphins from these mass slaughters and mass injustices, It Is Up To You & Me.. It Is Up To Us Individuals To Speak Up and Be The Voice For Our Defenceless, Highly Intelligent Marine Mammal Friends.

Just because our governments dont have the balls or compassion to put animal welfare first, doesnt mean you dont either!

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE… Here’s more links to help and action:

TakePart.com/TheCove
OPSOCIETY
SaveJapanDolphins.org
seashepherd.org/australia

Kangaboy has the Tshirt & Sea Shepherd Conservation Society needs your Help to Save the Whales!

Sea Shepherd’s Capt Paul Watson & his Crew is the only man and the only organisation in the entire world with the courage to be on the high seas to confront the Illegal Japanese Whale Slaughtering Government in passionate attempt (Representing all of us who wish to Save the Whales) to stop the actions of the criminal japanese against the Whales. Please Help! – Kangaboy

FRESH footage appears to back Sea Shepherd anti-whaling protesters’ claims that a Japanese vessel rammed them last week.

A new video clip shot aboard the Ady Gil and posted on You Tube shows crew members relaxing and joking on the roof of the boat until moments before the collision.

The Japanese vessel is visible in the distance as Capt Pete Bethune asks crew member Laurens de Groot to relay instructions to have the Ady Gil stopped.

“Do you want to reach in and tell them to stop now?” Capt Bethune says. The vessel then appears to drift.

Low on fuel, Bethune, de Groot and crewman Mike Smith wave goodbye to another Sea Shepherd vessel, the Bob Barker.

“Well team, f…ing good effort guys, what a good day,” Bethune says after a day of clashes with the whaling fleet.

“Shame we haven’t got a couple of thousand more litres of fuel to go. What a massive day, massive. Good team effort, not an easy day though.”

Two minutes into the video, the long-range acoustic device aboard the Shonan Maru 2 can be heard.

The trio watches unconcerned and takes photographs as the ship approaches and appears to turn towards them with its water cannons aimed at the Ady Gil.

Seconds before the collision the men start yelling. The footage ends a split second before the impact as the cameraman scrambles clear.

WATCH VIDEO FOOTAGE

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society leader Paul Watson said the footage showed claims by the whalers could not be believed on any issue and accused them of also staging images showing diesel leaking from the sinking boat.

“It only takes a bucket of diesel thrown over the side of the whaling ship to provide the evidence the Japanese are providing,” Capt Watson said.

“It is totally absurd that the Japanese, who deliberately rammed and destroyed the Ady Gil and refused to offer aid in response to its distress signal, are now accusing Sea Shepherd of polluting the sea because they cut the Ady Gil in half.

“In light of the damning documentary evidence of the Shonan Maru No 2 ramming and destroying the Ady Gil, it is utterly ridiculous to now see the Japanese claiming that the Ady Gil has not really been sunk, that Sea Shepherd caused an oil spill and that weapons meant to kill whalers just happened to be floating around the submerged hulk of the Ady Gil.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Government insists its bilateral relations with Japan are not being strained by the whaling issue.

Japan has reportedly hit out at Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard over her handling of last week’s collision, with officials saying her call for restraint on both sides would strain diplomatic efforts on the issue.

Officials told acting ambassador to Japan Allan McKinnon on Friday that it was “not appropriate” because the Ady Gil was “conducting the unlawful rampage”.

Acting Foreign Minister Simon Crean disagrees.

“I don’t think it is going to impact upon our relationship,” he told the ABC, adding that Australia should continue to urge “restraint” over whaling.

One of the most disgusting examples of selfish human greed and animal suffering on planet Earth… Sharks hooked by the thousands every day.. their fins are cut off.. and the shark is thrown back into his ocean home.. sinking to the ocean floor… and taking upto 3 hrs to drown.

It is estimated by scientists that we humans have depleted the oceans shark populations by 90% in the last 100 years!

Whats news to us apparent intelligent beings is that the shark being the top of the food chain in the oceans means that without him the creature at the very bottom of the food chain, the ‘plankton’ also becomes non existent – and plankton my friends turns carbon dioxide into oxygen… a massive 70% of the air on the Earths surface infact - is created by the oceans plankton!

It’s pretty simple really – No Sharks, No Life on Earth.

Please.. dont be afraid to show your disgust at the owner of the next restuarant you sight ‘shark fin soup’ on the menu. Its better they know why your leaving to eat somewhere else.

There are many many more mind blowing facts about ‘shark finning’… and we at Kangaboy are not going to go on about them here, because its all been filmed by Rob Stewart and put together into what is ‘positively the most important must be seen fast paced multi-award winning reality adventure film this century’… SHARKWATER…

‘Call us what you like – Evolve, or die – Cos your an idiot if you dont see it!’ – Do the sharks & yourself a favor.. Rob Stewart you are amazing.. Thankyou” – Kangaboy