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A Better Future for Dolphins
December 2012

As 2012 comes to an end I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support of BlueVoice.org, tell you what we accomplished in 2012 and our plans for 2013. You are a valued part of our efforts to save dolphins, whales and combat ocean contamination. And we are making a difference. We hope we can count on your continued support.

In addition to our work to stop the slaughter of dolphins in Japan, we found two deadly threats to dolphins that have worldwide ramifications and we've identified broadly applicable solutions.

Peru Dolphins on Handcard Newsletter

While in Peru last spring investigating a mass mortality of dolphins, we found that fishermen in the coastal villages of Peru are hunting and eating dolphins in numbers that may exceed the slaughter at Taiji, Japan. In November BlueVoice along with ORCA Peru went to San Jose, a fishing village north of Lima, to document the killing and to gather information on levels of diabetes in humans linked to consumption of dolphin meat.


Hardy Carlos Ds Skeleton

We expected the take of dolphins was occasional and opportunistic. To our horror, we found the town is entirely sustained on dolphin meat and the townspeople are terrified of the epidemic of diabetes that has emerged. Obviously the take of dolphins is far higher than we'd anticipated yet what emerged from our work in San Jose is enormously hopeful.


Peru Hardy Carlos Mayor sign accord

The mayor invited me and Dr. Carlos Yaipen of ORCA/Peru to address a town meeting that included the municipality, coast guard, health department and leaders of the fishing cooperative. At the end of the meeting an official agreement with the town was signed. In it the mayor agrees to make all possible efforts to end dolphin killing for the health of the people and the benefit of the oceans. What a difference from Taiji!

We collected hair samples from members of the community and will test them for mercury, and by analogy for organic pollutants. We will be providing information sheets and conducting further presentations in San Jose and other fishing villages. We are now surveying villages along the entire coastline of Peru to determine how widespread is the slaughter of dolphins.


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You will remember that during the spring I joined Dr. Yaipen to investigate rumors of a mass mortality event of dolphins on Peru's northern coast. We documented the death of 615 dolphins in our first three hours on the beach. We continued to monitor the situation until the event ceased in late April. Well over one thousand dolphins died. If we had not gone there the dolphins would have died unnoticed in the world outside of a small locale.

Putting together all the forensic information we had gathered we came to believe that seismic testing for oil, being conducted in the area at that time, was a plausible but not certain cause of the event. We presented this information in conferences and hearings on permitting seismic testing in the oceans. One permit in central California was denied, protecting thousands of marine mammals from pain and deafness.

The desperate plight of the dolphins and people in the coastal villages of Peru presents both a problem and an opportunity to create a model that will apply to fishing areas worldwide where dolphins are killed as bushmeat. The clear connection between consuming dolphin meat and incidence of diabetes is a tool we can use to drive down demand for dolphin meat in Peru and places such as Taiji, Japan.

I have never encountered an environmental situation more susceptible to change nor any that is more instructive and applicable worldwide.


With your support we will continue our work:
- Saving dolphins from slaughter for meat and humans from the health consequences of eating dolphin.
- Saving marine mammals from the wide-ranging effects of seismic testing which is on the increase worldwide.


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Thank you for your support and friendship,

Hardy Jones


We All Must be the Dolphins' Voice

BlueVoice has been in the fight to save dolphins and whales since 1980. We have learned what works and what doesn't. We are a small, highly effective organization with a strong record of success and accomplishment. As partners in BlueVoice's critical work you make our on-going efforts possible.

We will continue our work to protect dolphins and other marine mammals at risk from harmful human exploitation. We need your support to do this vitally important work.

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