The Cove is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Louie Psihoyos that analyzes and questions dolphin hunting practices in Japan. It was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010. The film is a call to action to halt mass dolphin kills and captures, change Japanese fishing practices, and inform and educate the public about captivity and the increasing hazard of mercury poisoning from consuming dolphin meat.

Psihoyos is a former-National Geographic photographer and a co-founder of the Oceanic Preservation Society, and the film is presented from an ocean conservationist's point of view. Portions were filmed secretly in 2007 using underwater microphones and high-definition cameras disguised as rocks. The film highlights the fact that the number of dolphins killed in the Taiji dolphin drive hunt is several times greater than the number of whales killed in the Antarctic, and asserts that 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed in Japan every year by the country's whaling industry. The migrating dolphins are herded into a cove where they are netted off. The young and pretty are sold to oceanariums and dolphinariums around the world, and the rest are brutally slaughtered. The film argues that dolphin hunting as practiced in Japan is unnecessary and cruel.

Since the film's release, The Cove has drawn controversy over its supposed lack of neutrality, secret filming techniques, and its portrayal of the Japanese people. It won the U.S. Audience Award at the 25th annual Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. It was selected out of 879 submissions in the category.

Synopsis

The film follows former-dolphin-trainer-turned-activist Ric O'Barry's quest to document the dolphin hunting operations in Taiji, Wakayama, Japan. In the 1960s, O'Barry helped capture and train the five wild dolphins who shared the role of "Flipper" in the hit television series of the same name. The show fueled widespread public adoration of dolphins and influenced the development of marine parks that included dolphins among their attractions. According to O'Barry, one of the dolphins committed a form of suicide in his arms by closing her blowhole voluntarily in order to suffocate, after which he came to see the dolphin's captivity and the dolphin capture industry as cruel and inhumane. Days later, he was arrested off the island of Bimini for attempting to cut a hole in a sea pen in order to set free a captured dolphin.^[7] Since then, according to the film, O'Barry has dedicated himself full-time as an advocate on behalf of dolphins around the world.

After meeting with O'Barry, Psihoyos and his crew travel to Taiji, Japan, a town that appears to be devoted to dolphins and whales. A group of local fishermen engage in dolphin drive hunting and generate tremendous revenues for the town by selling trapped dolphins to aquariums and marine parks around the world, with a premium paid for female bottlenose dolphins. In an isolated cove surrounded by wire fences and "Keep Out" signs, however, an activity takes place that the townspeople attempt to hide from the public. The dolphins that are not sold are driven into the cove and killed, with only modest income derived from the sale of the meat to supermarkets throughout Japan. According to the evidence presented in the film, the local government officials are involved in helping to hide the slaughter, and the Japanese public is largely unaware of the hunt and the marketing of dolphin meat, which the film states contains dangerously high levels of mercury. Two Taiji city councilors are interviewed who have advocated for the removal of dolphin meat from local school lunches due concerns about mercury.

All activists who attempt to view or film the dolphin killing in the cove are physically prevented from doing so by the fishermen, with the support of the local police and government, and the filmmakers are shadowed and questioned by the authorities. Faced with this, Psihoyos, O'Barry, and the crew utilize special tactics and technology to covertly film what is taking place in the cove. Near the end of the film, Psihoyos shows some of the grisly footage he was able to film during a dolphin slaughter to a Japanese official, who had repeatedly tried to minimize the incident during his interview. The official's friendly demeanor hardens, and he asks Psihoyos when and where the footage was filmed.

The film also reports on Japan's alleged "buying" of the votes of poor nations in the International Whaling Commission, stating that, while Dominica has withdrawn from the IWC, Japan has recruited the following nations to its whaling agenda: Cambodia, Ecuador, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Kiribati, Laos, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. After Psihoyos shows the footage to the Japanese official, the film cuts to O'Barry interrupting the annual meeting of the IWC. As the Japanese delegate is saying how Japanese fishermen have made their whaling tactics more humane, O'Barry enters the crowded meeting room with a TV playing the footage from the cove strapped to his chest and walks around until he is escorted from the building.

Cast

Production

To film in the cove, the filmmakers used specialized high-definition cameras that were camouflaged to look like rocks. These cameras were so well hidden that, according to director Louie Psihoyos, the crew had a hard time finding them again. A high-grade military thermal camera and different night vision cameras were also used in the production of the film.