The Cove

I'm making my way through the Oscar®-nominated documentaries; just one more to go. I saved my Netflix copy of The Cove for a recent rainy day here in Southern California, knowing that this was not going to be a sunshine kind of film. I wasn't wrong.

Part real-life horror film and part thrilling investigative journalism piece, The Cove exposes the gruesome practice of dolphin slaughter in the Japanese seaside hamlet of Tajiji. It all started with Flipper on television in the 1950s (remember him and his happy theme song?), who kicked off the worldwide fascination with these lovable marine mammals. Honestly, how many times have you been to Sea World just to see the dolphin show? A lot, that's how many.

Flipper's trainer was Richard O'Barry, who unwittingly set off the booming dolphin captivity industry for aquariums and marine shows around the world. Upon realizing the harmful effects of captivity on dolphins, he has spent the last several decades as an activist trying to end it. Dolphins are apparently big business, particularly for Tajiji, which is the largest dolphin supplier in the world. However, not every dolphin even makes it into captivity. From September through March every year, 23,000(!) dolphins are slaughtered in a secret cove in Tajiji, away from the sightline of residents. The remaining dolphin meat, full of toxic mercury, is often sold as whale meat to unsuspecting consumers in Japan.

The filmmakers start covertly filming the activities at the cove in order to expose this sickening practice. What is captured on film is heartwrenching, but the hope is that this film can help shame the Japanese into ending this practice before this year's slaughter begins, and allow these beautiful creatures to live freely in the oceans (although that just seems like it will eventually be the lesser of two evils at this point in the environmental decline).

This is an opportunity for a documentary film to make a direct impact on an urgent issue, so I for one hope that The Cove filmmakers get their 45 seconds on Oscar® night to trumpet their message to the masses.

Win one for the Flipper.