If you have yet to hear about “The Cove”, this is something you need to look up. This is a Documentary that was released in August of 2009. It has won most of the major awards for best documentary and is currently nominated for an academy award and is likely to win (and I think it should). It tells the story of the former dolphin trainer, Ric O’Barry, and his mission to bring to light the dolphin hunting/killings in Taiji, Japan. Ric O’Barry was at one time the most famous dolphin trainer alive as he was the original “Flipper” Trainer. It was not until Cathy (one of the “Flippers”) committed suicide in his arms that he realized that the captivity of dolphins is wrong and he therefore devotes his entire life to freeing dolphins. It’s a very moving story because he deals with this guilt because he was a part of the show that started the multi-million dollar industry of places such as “Sea World”. He believes that bringing to light the killings in Taiji will bring down the Dolphin show industry as this is where the majority of Dolphins are sold.
To shed light on Taiji, O’Barry teams up with director Louie Psihoyos to get actual footage of the killings. The problem is that the dolphins are brought to a very secret cove that is heavily guarded and no one is aloud in. People who have tried are always arrested. O’Barry has been arrested several times. O’Barry and Psihoyos develop a team to set up secret cameras in the cove to get footage of the dolphin killings. The team goes on 2 very dangerous night missions to place the secret cameras. They have a few underwater and construct cameras built into rocks to place on land. The rock cameras were so well hidden that they had trouble finding them afterwards. The movie is a build up to what you will see on that footage. We don’t see the footage until the last 15 minutes of the movie and what you see is disturbing and shocking. O’Barry has been displaying the footage as often as possibly. He sometimes wears a TV on his person as to display the footage in the streets.
The film also brings other things to light about mercury poisoning in dolphin meat. Because of this documentary, dolphin meat has been taken out of schools.
Thousands of Dolphins are killed every year and it is still going on today. The film leaves you with the question, “What will you do now?”
I cannot recommend the movie enough. It’s a beautifully shot film. Especially, all of the night scenes when they are going on their secret missions. “The Cove” brings to light a very serious issue in our world that not enough people know about. I have to ask myself what will I do now that I know this is happening? The only problem with the film is that it is an extremely one sided film. However, and I don’t say this much, I don’t care to hear the other side (and I know that’s a horrible thing to say). It’s hard to contradict the footage of the actual dolphin killings.
You must watch this film. It’s an important issue and something must be done about it.
Micah Trapp 