Title: The Cove
Country: United States of America
Language: English
Year: 2009
Cast:
- Richard O'Barry (Ric O'Barry)
- Louis Psihoyos
- Hardy Jones
- Ian Campbell
- Paul Watson
- Doug DeMaster
- Dave Rastovich
- Charles Hambleton
- Simon Hutchins
- Joe Chisholm
- Mandy-Rae Cruickshank
- Kirk Krack
- Moronuki Hideki (Hideki Moronuki)
- Dan Goodman
- Endo Tetsuya (Tetsuya Endo)
- C. Scott Baker
- Brook Aitken
- John Potter
- John Fuller
- Atherton Martin
SYNOPSIS
Using state-of-the-art equipment, a group of activists, led by renowned dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, infiltrate a cove near Taiji, Japan to expose both a shocking instance of animal abuse and a serious threat to human health.
REVIEW
The Cove is an interesting documentary about suspicious dolphin fishing in the small town of Taiji in the Wakayama prefecture in Japan. As a major supplier of dolphins to aquariums and marine parks all over the world, fishermen in Taiji cruelly capture thousands of dolphins in one lagoon in the area from September to March or April every year. More than that, the dolphins that were not sold to dolphin trainers are brutally killed for their meat, which is supposedly traditionally and commonly eaten in the country.
Whenever I travel, I usually try to go to local zoos, aquariums, and animal sanctuaries to see animals and to learn more about them. I don't think any one animal is more precious than another, but there are some animals that need special attention because their natural habitats are being destroyed, and it takes a long time for them to become adults and to reproduce.
To be honest, I don't really like going to the animal shows like dolphin shows because it seems unnatural. I imagine I wouldn't like to be forced to perform to audiences for free, and this is basically what animals used in these shows do. It's probably much worse for dolphins in captivity because they are very sensitive to sound, and they are exposed to people screaming on a daily basis.
Anyway, the way that fishermen in Taiji capture these dolphins is already questionable, but I don't understand why the captured live dolphins that are not bought by dolphin trainers are brutally slaughtered. Why are they cruelly killed instead of being set free in the ocean?
The dolphins are killed for their meat, which are supposedly commonly eaten in Japan. However, the documentary conducted interviews in Japan's biggest cities, and many people in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka don't eat dolphin meat. They didn't even know that some people in Japan eat dolphin meat. So who consumes the estimated 23,000 dolphins killed annually in Taiji?
Dolphin meat has toxic levels of mercury. Mercury can be very dangerous to humans, and exposure to mercury at high levels can damage the brain, heart, and lungs.
The Cove referenced the Minamata tragedy in Japan. The Chisso chemical company dumped its harmful industrial waste in the ocean from 1932 to 1968, and the people in Minamata town in Kumamoto prefecture suffered from mercury poisoning because they ate the locally harvested fish and shellfish.
The film also discussed how some meat sold in Japan (and maybe internationally) labeled as something else were found to be actually dolphin meat based on DNA testing. This is a very worrying issue because consumers are unknowingly buying and consuming dolphin meat.
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The Cove
The Cove
