The Cove Documentary

While watching the documentary film The Cove I learned that on average 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered each year in Taiji, Japan.  I am very supportive of whale and dolphin conservation myself so seeing these amazing creatures being inhumanely slaughtered is very disturbing.  The producers use facts and visuals to get peoples emotions going and to raise awareness about these shady activities that are going on in Taiji. Richard O’ Barry describes Taiji, Japan as a little town with a big secret.  O’Barry spent the first ten years of his career as a marine mammal specialist capturing dolphins for the entertainment world.  He has now spent the last thirty-eight years fighting the entertainment world he had created.  I have experienced dolphin entertainment first hand.  I have swam with them and fed them.  It was an enjoyable experience and I always thought that they loved to do this.  I never realized all the anxiety it can cause them and just how depressed dolphins in captivity can be.

            I agree with O’ Barry wanting to stop the killing of dolphins.  After seeing footage of Japanese fishermen killing the dolphins I couldn’t believe the cruelty. The directors and producers knew how to get peoples emotional support for this film. The fishermen start by sticking long metal poles into the water and continuously hit them with hammers causing a very loud frightening noise for the dolphins.  They chase the dolphins into a cove where nets trap them and more fishermen in smaller boats harpoon them and the dolphins flip around until they bleed out and sink to the bottom.  From there they are tied up to a boat and dragged to shore.  Dolphin meat is considered one of the lowest class meats in Japan.  When asked about eating dolphin’s most Japanese people had no idea that others were eating dolphin meat.  Dolphin meat isn’t even labeled as dolphin meat in stores.  Most fisheries try to sell it as high-grade whale meat.  So the Japanese people are being lied to about the seafood they are consuming. Dolphin meat also has very high levels of mercury in it, from all of the fish they consume. Dolphin meat was being distributed throughout Japanese schools.  With all the high levels of mercury in the meat, children can become deformed and have many health problems from mercury poisoning.

            O’ Barry uses lots of logical reasoning also when it comes to shutting down these dolphin slaughtering companies.  For instance, Japanese fishermen do not put a limit on how many dolphins they can catch.  They take as many as they possibly can get.  This could be catastrophic to the dolphin population of the world.  They also capture dolphins to send all over the world to be trained.  Most of the time the dolphins are kept in small tanks and trained for hours until they become so stressed out that many of them die.  Ric O’Barry is determined to release the dolphins and I agree with him.  I don’t agree with all of the methods he has used.  I also believe that the Japanese government has been trying to cover up their dolphin operation, if it were exposed they would immediately be shut down.  So they unfairly have arrested O’Barry, while some of his methods are a little eccentric his heart is in the right place and I believe in his cause and agree with shutting down these fisheries and taking dolphins out of their natural habitat for entertainment purposes.