Cove for a Cause

{ All images and info from site: here }

Dolphins can understand about 90 commands of American Sign Language but humans do not yet understand one word of dolphin language.

Academy Award® Winner for Best Documentary of 2009, THE COVE follows an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers as they embark on a covert mission to penetrate a remote and hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, shining a light on a dark and deadly secret.

Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery, adding up to an unforgettable story that has inspired audiences worldwide to action

Dolphins are the only known wild animals that will come to the rescue of a human being. In the OPS film David Rastovich, probably the best-known free surfer in the world, tells how he was rescued from a shark attack by a bottlenose dolphin. On a dive trip to Rangiroa in Polynesia, a pod of resident dolphins playing in the deep blue around director Louie Psihoyos left suddenly to attack and push away an approaching large great hammerhead shark.

The Story

The Cove exposes the slaughter of more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises off the coast of Japan every year, and how their meat, containing toxic levels of mercury, is sold as food in Japan and other parts of Asia, often labeled as whale meat. The majority of the world is not aware this is happening.  


The Solution

The focus of the Social Action Campaign for The Cove is to create worldwide awareness of this annual practice as well as the dangers of eating seafood contaminated with mercury, and to pressure those in power to put an end to the slaughter.

The Results

It’s been working. The film has been making waves since it premiered last year. Critical praise and audience awards worldwide have focused international attention on Taiji and the annual dolphin drives off the coast of Japan. Under intense pressure, Taiji called for a temporary ban on killing bottlenose dolphins in 2009. The film, originally rejected at the Tokyo Film Festival, was eventually shown due to public outcry, and has appeared in theaters in Japan. Residents in Taiji are being tested for mercury poisoning, and for the first time Japanese media are covering the issue.

Despite a 20-year moratorium on whaling they have yet to come back in any significant numbers. In the 1964-65 killing season 5 catcher fleets of Japanese whalers could not find a single blue whale. As a result the Japanese whalers rented out whaling base stations from Chile, the winter home of Antarctic Blues and wiped out every one they could find. Chile has recently declared all of their territory waters a whale sanctuary.

Evolved countries, such as Chile, prohibit the capture or confinement of cetaceans. Some countries, like Italy and Brazil, have banned interactive programs involving physical contact and public feeding. Increasingly, other countries are joining in, like the UK and Australia, and are phasing out captive dolphinarium displays.

 There are more than 200 captive dolphin exhibits in more than 60 countries today.

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The Cove is on Instant Play through Netflix as well! It breaks my heart into little pieces. But knowledge really is power, and the more we know, the more we can stop this! I haven't been a big fan of places like Sea World for some time now. And every time I hear a story about how some stupid kid abuses animals in a Zoo and the animal that lashes out is the one to be killed...it makes me sick to my stomach.