When I went to last night's showing of 'The Cove' at MWPAI, I knew that the I was going to witness horrific scenes of dolphins being killed, but I had no idea how one of the people in the film would be connected to my childhood and perhaps yours, as well as how this film would be connected to a previous post that I wrote on this blog.
The film is centered around Ric O'Barry, and his passionate mission to insure that dolphins are no longer subject to captivity, and hunting. At first I didn't quite understand why Mr. O'Barry was so passionate on this subject, but it became clear as I watched the film. In short, Mr. O'Barry is partly (if not largely) responsible for the world's fascination with these amazing creatures. After he left the Navy in the early 1960's, he was hired as a Dolphin trainer at the Miami Seaquarium. He was then hired to capture and train Dolphins to be used on the Flipper television show, which debuted on the NBC television network in 1964. If you are of my generation, you surely have seen and enjoyed the show.
At the time, he recognized the extraordinary intelligence that Dolphins possessed, but as he admits in the film, the lure of money and 'a new Porsche every year' was hard to deny for a young man. The event that turned him from Dolphin-trainer-for-hire, to Dolphin protector and activist, was when one of the Bottlenose Dolphins that portrayed Flipper, named Kathy, swam into his arms, and he believes, committed suicide. He supports this claim with the widely acknowledged fact that Dolphins (and indeed all Cetaceans) are voluntary air-breathers, and unlike humans, and many other land-dwelling mammals, have the ability to choose when they take a breath, or when they do not. According to O'Barry, after weeks of showing signs of depression, Kathy swam into his arms, opened her blowhole to take a breath, and then never took another. The very next day, activist O'Barry was arrested for freeing a dolphin from captivity near Bimini.
Much of the film takes place in a Japanese city called Taiji where there is a yearly hunt in which Dolphins are 'herded' into a cove whereupon some are sold to aquariums from around the world, and the rest are killed for their meat. The goal of the people in this film was to be able to get the slaughter on film, and in so doing, created a documentary that is unlike any documentary I have ever seen.
The cove where the slaughter takes place is actually part of a local park, that has been fenced off so that no one can see what takes place there. Anyone who is not a part of the Taiji fishing crew is not allowed in the cove. O'Barry and company had many problems to overcome to be able to secretly film in the cove, including camouflaging Hi-Def cameras to look like rocks, locating them in and around the cove without being caught, positioning underwater microphones, and building a radio-controlled helicopter to attempt to get aerial footage. Doing all of these things required recruiting people with talents as wildly varied as Hollywood special-effects artists, and world-class Freedivers. The scenes where the team sneaked into the cove under the cover of darkness were as tense as any drama I have seen.
The footage that they shot was as horrific and disturbing as I had imagined, and everyone should see it. Sadly, however, this was one of the more poorly attended films that I have seen in a while, and I suspect it's precisely because people did not want to see it. I can only hope that this film will change things.
As a vegetarian, I obviously oppose the killing of animals for food, but I would think that any reasonable person would oppose the captivity and slaughter of a life form that is likely sentient. In addition to that, Dolphin meat is among the most highly toxic meats on the planet due to very high Mercury levels, so it's simply not a good food source.
In the film, Mr. O'Barry spoke about why captivity is so stressful for Dolphins. I had never really thought that deeply about it before, but as an Audio Engineer, once he made his point, it was like being hit by a hammer. Dolphins are acoustic creatures that evolved in the oceans and use a highly-sensitive and sophisticated natural Sonar array to help them navigate. You know... the incredibly huge oceans that aren't bounded by concrete walls? Now imagine being a creature that uses Sonar, and being forced to live in what must seem like a minuscule concrete cage. When a dolphin uses its Sonar in such a confined space with such reflective surfaces, it must be awful. I can only imagine that due to that, confinement for Dolphins must be hellish. I can relate to this because even as a human without a Sonar array, doing audio work (recording, mixing, mastering) in small rooms with reflective parallel walls creates great difficulties.
In my first paragraph I alluded to a connection between this film and a previous post on this blog. If you're a regular reader you will no doubt remember my review of the Animal Planet television series called Whale Wars. Captain Paul Watson of the 'Steve Irwin' was quoted several times in this film, and they also used footage from 'Whale Wars' depicting Japanese whaling. It should come as no surprise to you that the governing body that oversees Japanese whaling, also oversees the capture and slaughter of Dolphins. It's amazing how things sometimes come full circle.
The Cove's Official Web site
The Cove At The IMDB
Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project Web Site
The film is centered around Ric O'Barry, and his passionate mission to insure that dolphins are no longer subject to captivity, and hunting. At first I didn't quite understand why Mr. O'Barry was so passionate on this subject, but it became clear as I watched the film. In short, Mr. O'Barry is partly (if not largely) responsible for the world's fascination with these amazing creatures. After he left the Navy in the early 1960's, he was hired as a Dolphin trainer at the Miami Seaquarium. He was then hired to capture and train Dolphins to be used on the Flipper television show, which debuted on the NBC television network in 1964. If you are of my generation, you surely have seen and enjoyed the show.
At the time, he recognized the extraordinary intelligence that Dolphins possessed, but as he admits in the film, the lure of money and 'a new Porsche every year' was hard to deny for a young man. The event that turned him from Dolphin-trainer-for-hire, to Dolphin protector and activist, was when one of the Bottlenose Dolphins that portrayed Flipper, named Kathy, swam into his arms, and he believes, committed suicide. He supports this claim with the widely acknowledged fact that Dolphins (and indeed all Cetaceans) are voluntary air-breathers, and unlike humans, and many other land-dwelling mammals, have the ability to choose when they take a breath, or when they do not. According to O'Barry, after weeks of showing signs of depression, Kathy swam into his arms, opened her blowhole to take a breath, and then never took another. The very next day, activist O'Barry was arrested for freeing a dolphin from captivity near Bimini.
Much of the film takes place in a Japanese city called Taiji where there is a yearly hunt in which Dolphins are 'herded' into a cove whereupon some are sold to aquariums from around the world, and the rest are killed for their meat. The goal of the people in this film was to be able to get the slaughter on film, and in so doing, created a documentary that is unlike any documentary I have ever seen.
The cove where the slaughter takes place is actually part of a local park, that has been fenced off so that no one can see what takes place there. Anyone who is not a part of the Taiji fishing crew is not allowed in the cove. O'Barry and company had many problems to overcome to be able to secretly film in the cove, including camouflaging Hi-Def cameras to look like rocks, locating them in and around the cove without being caught, positioning underwater microphones, and building a radio-controlled helicopter to attempt to get aerial footage. Doing all of these things required recruiting people with talents as wildly varied as Hollywood special-effects artists, and world-class Freedivers. The scenes where the team sneaked into the cove under the cover of darkness were as tense as any drama I have seen.
The footage that they shot was as horrific and disturbing as I had imagined, and everyone should see it. Sadly, however, this was one of the more poorly attended films that I have seen in a while, and I suspect it's precisely because people did not want to see it. I can only hope that this film will change things.
As a vegetarian, I obviously oppose the killing of animals for food, but I would think that any reasonable person would oppose the captivity and slaughter of a life form that is likely sentient. In addition to that, Dolphin meat is among the most highly toxic meats on the planet due to very high Mercury levels, so it's simply not a good food source.
In the film, Mr. O'Barry spoke about why captivity is so stressful for Dolphins. I had never really thought that deeply about it before, but as an Audio Engineer, once he made his point, it was like being hit by a hammer. Dolphins are acoustic creatures that evolved in the oceans and use a highly-sensitive and sophisticated natural Sonar array to help them navigate. You know... the incredibly huge oceans that aren't bounded by concrete walls? Now imagine being a creature that uses Sonar, and being forced to live in what must seem like a minuscule concrete cage. When a dolphin uses its Sonar in such a confined space with such reflective surfaces, it must be awful. I can only imagine that due to that, confinement for Dolphins must be hellish. I can relate to this because even as a human without a Sonar array, doing audio work (recording, mixing, mastering) in small rooms with reflective parallel walls creates great difficulties.
In my first paragraph I alluded to a connection between this film and a previous post on this blog. If you're a regular reader you will no doubt remember my review of the Animal Planet television series called Whale Wars. Captain Paul Watson of the 'Steve Irwin' was quoted several times in this film, and they also used footage from 'Whale Wars' depicting Japanese whaling. It should come as no surprise to you that the governing body that oversees Japanese whaling, also oversees the capture and slaughter of Dolphins. It's amazing how things sometimes come full circle.
The Cove's Official Web site
The Cove At The IMDB
Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project Web Site
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