Movie Poster for "The Cove", Lionsgate
Yesterday I watched the feature documentary, The Cove (2009). Although it has been around for a while, I don’t get to see many movies until they go to DVD, so this was a first for me. The movie won an Oscar for the Best Feature Documentary. However, this is not Disney movie about “cute” dolphins. If you are going to watch it, be prepared to see some shocking film footage on the atrocities being committed against dolphins in Japan. The Cove, I suspect, is only the tip fo the iceberg on what is probably happening in other places throughout the world.
What makes The Cove more powerful is that it centers on a character called Ric O’Barry. Ric O’Barry was a dolphin trainer back in the 1960′s and was responsible for contributing to the success of Flipper (the dolphin) in the American T.V. series. However, Ric O’Barry realized that capturing and training dolphins for human entertainment was wrong when he witnessed the death of Flipper (in real life, Kathy) in his arms. From that moment on, he became an activist fighting to free captive dolphins and the atrocities committed to them.
The Cove follows Ric O’Barry and a team of divers, activists and film makers in an attempt to reveal to the outside world what is happening in a small cove in Taiji, Japan. These people risk prison and other dangers in the process of making this documentary.
The Cove is both harrowing and powerful to watch. Dolphins are highly intelligent creatures and to say they do not know what is going to happen to them (and their babies) before the appalling way in which these Japanese fishermen kill them is both naive and uneducated.
I would urge you to take the time to educate yourself on what really is happening in the world of dolphins today. One powerful fact that stuck with me from the movie was that in just forty years time if we continue to fish the seas and kill dolphins and whales in the quantities in which we are doing so – we will end up with no fish left in the world…. That is something which may happen within my life time…..
First watch the trailer for The Cove, then watch the video on what you can do to stop the slaughter of 20,000 innocent dolphins and porpoises off Japan’s coast lines each year…
And please pass it on….
