The Oceanic Preservation Society‘s (OSP) documentary/crime filmThe Cove, directed by Louis Psihoyos presents its audience with the gruesome details of the capture and slaughter of dolphins by local fisherman in Taiji, Japan.
The documentary introduces us to Ric O’Barry, most well-known as the man who trained five dolphins for the show Flipper. After the trauma of one of the Flipper dolphins, Kathy, dying, or as O’Barry put it, committing suicide in his arms, his views on dolphin captivity radically changed, and he was arrested the next day when he tried to free some dolphins. He now devotes his life to save as many dolphins as he can.
O’Barry takes a team of filmmakers, activists, and free divers to Taiji in order to capture footage of the yearly dolphin massacre. Their success spawned the film that won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Within the film we see footage of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The IWC meet two times a year to discuss whaling regulations and the conservation of whale stocks. Ric O’Barry believes that “the IWC will go down in history as a ship of fools.”
The parts of the film detailing the IWC conference revealed that Japan offers to pay places such as Anitgua and Barbuda, and Dominica if they support their stance on whaling. This demonstrates how far Japan is willing to go to keep their horrifying ecological crimes going.
Even though the fishermen know that the dolphin meat has massive amounts of mercury in it, they continue to massacre these dolphins and sell the meat to the public. Clearly, the poisoning of Minamata is not an issue to them. In 1956, mercury poising caused what is now known as Minamata disease. The disease sparks numerous neurological symptoms such as lack of coordination, muscle weakness, damage to hearing and speech, and in extreme cases, paralysis, coma, and ultimately, death.
The documentary explains that a lot of the reason Japan has not stopped committing these crimes is because they have traditional notions of empire, and do not want to be told what to do. This is just one of the reasons many of the fishermen, specifically O’Barry called “Private Space” (because those were the only two English words he knew), would carry around video cameras and videotape the crew whenever they came near the cove.
Luckily, the crew O’Barry brought along to Taiji developed a plan to capture recordings of the gruesome crimes. Below are shots during and after the fisherman massacred the dolphins.
(WARNING: MAY BE SHOCKING).
The fishermen stabbing the dolphins one by one.
Beneath the surface, the water quickly went from a beautiful green to a bloody red.
While The Cove has made the public more aware of the current issue, there is still a long way to go.
As Ric O’Barry said, dolphins are as self-aware as humans are, and we must fight to protect them from captivity and untimely death.
(Note: My next post will discuss Japan’s reaction to The Cove).
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