The Cove Knowledge Is Power

The Cove – Knowledge is Power

It’s pretty much a daily problem that a documentary describing our fucked up world is released. The Cove stands out though, making for a particularly harrowing experience. To say I felt guilty, shocked and sickened after watching the Academy Award winning film is somewhat of an understatement. Why have I never heard of this documentary before? And more importantly is there anything remotely in my power that I can do to help raise awareness of the film and its subject matter?

The Cove follows activist RicO’Barry, formerly a dolphin trainer, to a small coastal town in Japan called Taiji with an aim to record footage of the events that take place there for 6-8 months each year. The territory is restricted only to fishermen or police and is home to the ‘Dolphin Hunt Season,’ which runs variably from September to March on the coast, or sometimes longer when further offshore. It sees the hunting of dolphins which are either held in lifelong captivity or brutally slaughtered for meat. During the 2015/16 hunt, a total of 1873 dolphins were captured according to O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, with 652 of those being inhumanely murdered. These figures are shocking, despite being half of what they were at the time of filming (2007).

The method used to capture the dolphins begins with sonar interference techniques. By using ‘banger poles’ and mallets, a system which sees metal rods being lowered into the water and repeatedly hammered, the fishermen create a deafening wall of sound. To the pods, this is torture and in turn they panic, frantically swimming away from the source which strategically herds them into giant double nets.

Sadly, the battle only begins here, as the family of pods isusually so distressed that they will attempt to free themselves by thrashing around in the nets looking for any means of escape. Most are unsuccessful; others find themselves beached upon the shore, helpless and inevitably awaiting death. Overnight, pods are left in the nets, driving them to unimaginable levels of distress, many of the dolphins dying as a result of mental strain, shock or exhaustion before any slaughter begins.

The following day families are separated – the prime young are taken away from their mothers, ready to be selected by dolphin trainers for public entertainment programmes. The rest are left for human consumption. Dolphins are incredibly social creatures and have some of the most complex behavioural structures known to man. They thrive on each other’s company and dolphins will not leave their pod’s sides, as is made evident by the few escapees of these drive hunts. So to continue hunting, and to continue witnessing, surely the fishermen aren’t aware of the extent of the dolphins’ intelligence?

Then comes the killing.The Taiji Bay waters turn from blue to red as the massacring of hundreds of dolphins takes place. Local fishermen butcher the dolphins with spears until they can no longer fight. However, don’t fret…The Japanese Government have approved this as a humane technique, provided the spear severs the spinal cord at the point of impact. Obviously this very precise way of killing the dolphins is an impractical and unattainable goal to begin with, but what legitimate authority monitors this, when the bay is closed off to everybody bar a few?

During more recent dolphin drives, the bay has been covered by tarps in order to hide the killings from anyone who may be witness to the slaughter. It’s no wonder the fishermen feel the need to block potential spectators views when this method of killing is so inhumane that it would be deemed unacceptable (and illegal) for slaughterhouses anywhere in the US or Europe.

After their ‘successful’ hunt, the fishermen proceed with business as usual, selling the dolphins for human consumption or for entertainment purposes. Seaworld (one of the largest whale and dolphin entertainment corporations in the world) are one of the better known culprits, amongst other dolphinariums based mainly in Asia but reaching countries as far as Mexico, Russia and Bahrain.

A dolphin sold for meat can bring as much as $600(USD) per mammal, where a live dolphin has been known to bring $300,000. More recently another ‘motive’ for the killings, as some Japanese fishermen stated was ‘for pest control’. Apparently the dolphins in this area of the world eat too many fish!

Even beyond the dolphin hunt itself, there are still darker truths to be exposed. It seems there are multiple layers of fraud, many of which O’Barry explores in the film, all as equally vile and corrupt as each other. I’ll use the sale of dolphin meat as the first example. In many Asian countries dolphin meat is considered a delicacy, and yet the Japanese demand in has decreased significantly in recent years. So if the demand is decreasing, why are sales still up? Especially when dolphin meat is largely seen to be ‘trashy’ in Japan, with people opting to buy what is considered better quality and more ‘luxurious’ whale meats instead. Little do consumers know that their more expensive ‘whale meat’ is being packaged, mislabeled and sold under a completely false pretense as a disguise for the dolphin meat that they are in fact buying.

And still, the issues of animal cruelty, deceit and lying to the public go much further than this if we look at the health hazards consuming dolphin or whale meat can cause. Countless tests on dolphin and whale meat have been carried out and most reveal levels of mercury and other toxic chemicals present (sometimes up to 1600 times the legal quantities), a massive violation of food safety laws. Team this with a non-existent warning of toxicity levels on packaging, or anywhere within the vicinity of sales, and the public are once again in the dark about what exactly it is they are buying.

If they were aware of the birth defects, neurological diseases, risks to immune and nervous systems that the mercury in dolphin meat poses, particularly in pregnant women and their unborn babies, would they still enjoy the food on their plate? Probably not. But the Japanese government allows the sale of dolphin meat in hospitals and schools, despite knowing that children are more vulnerable to the dangers of mercury than adults.

And the defects of mercury aren’t such a distant memory to almost 12,000 citizens of Minamata, Japan, who from the 1950’s onwards suffered environmental poisoning through the consumption of mercury contaminated fish. In fact, the mercury caused neurological disease is named after the town itself. Yet still, for some unknown reason, the Japanese government continues to allow the hunts to take place, the food to be packaged and the public to be none the wiser.

Raising public awareness has been one of the primary concerns for O’Barry and his team, and there’s no denying that already a visible shift in public attitude is happening. With mounting pressure from activists and worldwide organisations, together with the growing awareness of dolphin hunts and the decline for dolphin meat, drive hunts in Japan are becoming less and less successful.

The responsibility obviously doesn’t solely lie within Taiji; this culture is globally prevalent. Countries such as Peru, Indonesia and Vietnam have a huge demand for dolphins and sometimes thousands are harvested merely to be used as shark bait.

But change IS happening.Trip Advisor have newly announced a halt on ticket sales to dolphin shows, elephant rides, petting zoos and other captive animal businesses through their site – a step in the right direction. Following suit are 20 travel agencies in Denmark who have realised that public display programmes are essentially holding dolphins and whales in captivity. Barcelona Zoo is currently considering freeing their captive dolphins, with a decision expected before the end of the year. Imagine if organisations worldwide did the same?

Change won’t come overnight, but by using Taiji as a point for advocacy, this could be the domino effect for other countries taking action. As RicO’Barry states in the film “I spent ten years building that industry up (i.e. capturing and training dolphins), and I spent the last thirty-five years trying to tear it down”, so it will without doubt be a long process but progress is already being made.

There are hundreds more points that could be discussed in this article: the environmental impact of the drives, the corruption within the IWC (International Whaling Commission), the effect on the Japanese economy, the cruelty that takes place within captive wild animal shows. The list goes on and so does the dolphin slaughter.

But the point here is not to preach, but rather to inform those who are unaware (as I was until very recently) of these drive hunts. I hope you read this article, watch The Cove and find the film as interesting and awakening as I did. By sharing articles and events, hosting screenings, signing petitions, not attending sealife shows and essentially by just making people aware of these horrendous dolphin hunts, we can educate others and hopefully abolish the drives which are still happening almost 10 years after filming.

Useful Links:

dolphinproject.net

bluevoice.org