The Cove

The Cove is a documentary about an activist, Ric O’ Barry,with a group of volunteer and friends from Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) travelling to Taiji, Japan to try to uncover the truth behind how those dolphins are treated when they were caught by the fishing crew and also various interviews with the assistant chief of the whaling division at Japan's Fisheries Agency, Hideki Moronuki and some video footage of Dominica from the International Whaling Commission (IWC). In the beginning of the documentary, O’Barry states that Taiji is a little town with big secret. In a glance across Taiji, one may think that it’s a dolphin paradise but actually, it’s a living hell for the dolphins. Taiji is the largest supplier of dolphins to marine parks, dolphinarium and aquariums around the world. The dolphin drive period is around September to March. When IWC banned whaling, though it reduced the number of whaling activities, it brought negative effects to the dolphins. Within a year, the killing of dolphins and porpoises were tripled. And the movie also stated that 23k of dolphin and porpoises slaughters every year was not acknowledge, which significantly was due to the media cover-up. Ric O’ Barry went around Tokyo interviewing passer-bys if they were aware of the massive number of unacknowledged killing of dolphins and porpoises. All who were interviewed were unaware of it nor do they consume dolphin meat. Tetsuya Endō, the associate professor of the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido stated that the supposed “whale meat” which the crew brought to him for research from the market was in fact dolphin meat. And shockingly, dolphin meat are not safe for consumption, for dolphin meat contain large amount of mercury. The acceptable amount of mercury intake is 0.04ppm whereas dolphin meat consists of 2000ppm (50k times more!) Japanese fishermen view dolphin- killing as pest control as since 2003, Japan has cited scientific data blaming decline in global fisheries on dolphins and whales. They think that dolphins and whales are “overeating”their fishes, therefore a need to reduce their population. The activists went through extreme measures to grab footages from the prohibited zones in Taiji which showed the cruel and brutal way of how those dolphins were killed ;that contradicts what Moronuki said about the method of killing those dolphins have been improved over the years to shorten their suffering, which as what the footages show was not true. And Moronuki himself became speechless when they showed him the video of the killings in action and also seemed angered by them barging into forbidden zones to steal footages of that sort.

I have a very contradicting point of view. I think that the dolphin-killing is wrong. Many who were interviewed declared that they don’t consume dolphin meat, so why do the fishermen in Taiji kill all those dolphins which were not selected by dolphin trainers? Why do they not release them backin the wild? What was shown from the video footage about the killing was no worse than like a killing spree with no purpose I can think of. The methods to kill them are inhumane as well, spearing them continuously until the dolphins “gave up”, using a sickle-like thing to pierce into their body to hook them up onto the boat when they’re dead. It is scientifically proven that dolphins have self-awareness which makes the killing even more inhumane. Moreover, dolphins have been known to save human lives. What morality is left when people kill their life saviours? Not only that, we are bringing harm to ourselves as well; when disguised as food, dolphin and whale meat contain high amount of mercury,not safe for consumption and may cause mercury poisoning. However, in another perspective, I think that dolphin- killing may not be that unforgiving. As what the fishermen stated that killing dolphins and porpoises are like pest controls as they are overeating our fish supplies.It is therefore important to reduce the number of them to ensure we have sufficient fish supplies as well; keeping a balance in a sense. But I still think that it is inhumane to kill the dolphins the way people in Taiji do. For the people in Taiji, it is their “culture” and the way they live. It is their main source of income; selling living dolphins to aquariums can cost up to $150k and dead ones for $600. Japan proved that there is a declining number of fisheries, but Ric O’Barry failed to provide the exact number of decline of dolphins worldwide to an extent that needs concern. I think way to solve the problem of these killing in the name of "pests control", fishermen can set-up more fisheries out in the sea to commercially rear the fish we consume. This helps to increase the fish population so as to have enough fish in the wild for both fishermen and the whales and dolphins. Secondly, by rearing them in the wild, fishes adapt better and maintain their "nutritional value" (as what some says fishes in the wild taste better than those commercially raised in hatcheries.)

Ric O’Barry, once a dolphin trainer who spent 10 years building up his career and the dolphin show industry, used his own hands to catch the 5 dolphins in Flipper, ends up spending the rest of his life trying to tear it down. I do feel for him as he is trying very hard to amend for his mistakes, but with tourism becoming every countries’ important source of income, I don’t think tearing the industry down completely is going to happen,at least not any time sooner.

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