Into the Bloody Cove

Very occasionally in life you see a film or a show and the scales of world-weary miasma fall away from your eyes and you realise  that you have just witnessed something that may change history. So it was for me when I watched The Cove – a very special film now having its première in the United States and due to be released elsewhere in the next few months. If you are interested in whales and dolphins, you will be hearing a lot about this film. You will undoubtedly hear many people eulogize about it (as many already have and I am now poised to do) and you will see it promoted on this website and elsewhere.

Many people have been campaigning against the issue of Japanese drive hunts and their links to the captivity industry for many years, but this film may well make this a mainstream issue. Indeed, my prediction is that the wave of support and enthusiasm on which it is being launched will carry it a long way, and that this will be a good thing. The film will also have its detractors in due course. Some will deplore the ‘underhand’ way in which it was made. Others will claim it is biased or misleading. However, such criticisms will probably come mainly from those inherently opposed to revealing the bloody facts of what happens in this eponymous cove in a small town in Japan.   

However, perhaps you have not heard about this film yet, so let me go back a step and describe this docudrama and bring you up to speed. This is the real-life story of a group of unusual film-makers facing an unusual challenge: to expose the dolphin slaughter that goes on carefully shielded from the eyes of the world in the town in Taiji in Japan; to expose it to a world audience and thereby build support for ending this remarkably cruel practice. (The film needs to come with a parental guidance warning because towards the end – and you know all the way through in the pit of your stomach that this is coming - we inevitably view scenes of dolphin slaughter.)

I’m going to précis the film now, so if you don’t want to read this spoiler please skip this section in italics and go to the end:

The film has several interlinked themes. Firstly there is the story of Ric O’Barry (best known as one of  the former trainer of the dolphins used in the Flipper TV shows and a long-time convert to the anti-captivity cause). Having seen the error of his younger days as a trainer, Ric is now dedicated to opposing the captivity industry that keeps dolphins locked away in miserable conditions for human entertainment. One particularly violent face of this is the Taiji dolphin hunt - where dolphins of various species (including bottlenoses like Flipper) are driven ashore to provide animals both for dolphinaria and to be slaughtered for meat. Indeed, as the film details, our desire to see them as captives in parks and shows not only fuels the international trade in live animals but also helps keep the meat trade alive by subsidising it. The animals for shows are worth an order of magnitude more than the meat carved from their dead bodies.

Ric is shown being confronted by the authorities in Japan and by the hunters themselves. We learn that the dolphins to be sold on alive are taken in one bay and then the terrified remainder is herded around a point into the steep neighbouring hidden Cove where, far out of sight, they are killed. These bays are also protected by security and barbed wire.

The main theme of the film commences when funders and film makers are shown getting together and starting to develop technologies that can be deployed in a daring expedition to Taiji to document the hunt. Cameras hidden in fake rocks and cameras hanging from flying machines are fashioned for deployment and record-breaking free-divers recruited who can help stealthily plant underwater microphones to capture the sounds of the hunt.

The film progresses by showing us how the team takes the equipment into Japan and then how eventually, under cover of darkness, they plant these recording devices. This main theme is interlaced with another which considers the human health risks associated with eating dolphin meat, which is frequently highly contaminated; and yet another theme which takes the audience to the small Caribbean Island of St Kitts and the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting of a few years ago which was hosted there. Here some of the claims made by Japan and its supporters at the IWC are artfully presented and juxtaposed against what we are being shown actually happens.

All of these aspects are woven into a fast moving adventure, which if it was simply a thriller would probably be enough to keep the viewers gripped. However, of course it is more than this, it is ‘bearing witness’ in the old tradition of the environmental and animal welfare movement, but doing so using the most up-to-date technology and the most far-reaching modern medium – the movie film. 

Despite the sombre themes of the movie, there is much humour there too. However, of course, when the killing scenes come there is no doubting the suffering of the poor dolphins. This is no swift clean death as the officials have claimed for them and ultimately it is these brief scenes of unspeakable cruelty which will fuel the outrage which just might lead to change. In fact the film will undoubtedly speak to the many Japanese nationals who have no idea that this callous slaughter even takes place and who will be as shocked and moved as their counterparts in other countries.

I watched The Cove in a small hotel room in Madeira on the evening after this year’s IWC meeting had rather abruptly finished. Several special showings had been organised to coincide with the Commission meeting. I was tired and somewhat distracted, still musing on what had and had not just happened in the meeting halls, but The Cove still gripped me. As part of my job I have had to watch footage of whales and dolphins being cruelly treated before (sometimes I am even asked for a professionally opinion of such things) but I was still moved and upset by what I saw. I’m sure others will be too.

This movie is important. It is gripping, coherent, fascinating, funny and terrible. (Terrible in that it shows something so awful that many will find it hard to appreciate that this still goes on.) This movie can help make things change and I congratulate the film-makers and funders for what they have achieved.

WDCS has long worked in Japan for change. This has included visits to Taiji  (that met with the same reactions as seen in the film) seeking to address this and the other Japanese hunts. Much of what we have done we have done quietly, and the challenge for us now, along with others working on what often seem intractable matters, will be how to help most usefully focus the concern and enthusiasm for action that will follow this film.

To find out more about the Japanese hunts and the captivity industry and WDCS long term campaign to end these practices see our dedicated website Driven By Demand.

The Cove’s official website is here:  http://thecovemovie.com/ 

Go and see the film when it comes to your country and take lots of other people with you, but be prepared for an emotional roller-coaster.  

Mark Simmonds, WDCS International Director of Science