Oscar Winning Documentary Captures the Plight of Dolphins
Gabrielle Moore | Mar 11, 2010 | Comments 1
The Oscars got a taste of social awareness when the winners of the best documentary, “The Cove,” held up a sign encouraging people to text money that would go to sav
ing the dolphins, the main point of their movie that chronicles dolphin hunts in Japan.
The man with the sign was dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry, who worked on the television series “Flipper,” and is featured in the movie. The movie looks at the practicing of capturing dolphins in the town of Taiji, Japan. Some of the dolphins are slaughtered for food, and some go to aquariums and amusement parks. O’Barry may have once been a trainer for the dolphins, but in the movie he advocates against it. Dolphins that are captured and brought to various places for entertainment purposes are captives, he argues, and people should think twice before buying a ticket to a show that exploits these animals. The publicity around this movie is interesting considering the recent tragedy at Sea World, where a killer whale killed his trainer. Many pointed out that killer whales, as well as dolphins, should not be kept in captivity, and this may have contributed to the trainer’s death.
With an Oscar win for “The Cove,” comes more publicity to the cause it’s trying to promote. Though it touches on the difficulties of capturing dolphins, it focuses mainly on the slaughter of 20,000 dolphins in that one area alone. The dolphin meat is sold for public consumption, and another concern is the highly toxic levels of mercury it contains. The filmmakers are encouraging people to get on board with helping to end these practices. As well as following some of the steps listed on the website, the film is worth a watch. It brings to light many things about the dolphin industry that aren’t known, and the quality is good enough for an Oscar.
For more information visit http://thecovemovie.com/ and http://www.savejapandolphins.org/. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, “The Cove” is available on DVD.
Filed Under: Media & The Web
About the Author: Gabrielle Moore is a Michigan State University journalism student. She's still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up, but she harbors a passion for telling moving and meaningful stories, and appreciates the power of storytelling to influence the world. An animal lover since she can remember, she volunteers at her local animal shelter and is involved with Michigan's Children, pushing for legislative support and funding for children's programs across the state.
Hey green, green-man:
There’s always a side to the story that you don’t know about, so please open your eyes and be more objective than a naieve maniacal single-sighted fool.
Did you know that the Japs. (not derogatory, just time saving), living on their tiny island (compared to your big ass America), which is 70% mountainous and therefore not cattle raising friendly land, historically were and still are protein starved, hence their smaller stature. So they turn to the sea for protein. All across thr globe, humans eat animals–baby cows (veal), field rats, lambs, monkees, rabbits, dogs, dolphins, etc.–for survival. Also, the Japs. have modernized & civilized their hunting technique before you made your documentary, but yet you purposely fail to accurately document this newer more humane way of hunting dolphins. Instead of sensationalizing and erroneously documenting how other humans obtain protein sources around the globe, why don’t you look further into answering the question of how Americans could have such low standards for food quality which directly leads to poor health such as diabetes, obesity & heart disease. By low quality, I mean, why do Americans alone allow the use of transfat oils in fast food restaurants; why do they allow hormones, and animal feces, bones, blood & byproducts to be fed to their livestock–cattle & pigs; why do they allow sugar and oil to be the first ingredient in many of its products; why do they allow yellow 5 and other harmful chemicals to be in many of its products??????????? Why?, especially when these practices are banned in places like Japan, the European Union, Australia, etc!