Jeff and I just finished watching the Oscar award winning feature documentary, The Cove. Let me say that before I saw this I guess I was quite oblivious to this world. And I learned that Japan (where it happens the most) is even more oblivious than I was!
If you don’t know what The Cove is about I would suggest watching the trailer, just be forewarned, that yes, there is blood:
In case you don’t have the stomach to watch the trailer (or tried to and had to stop) I suggest seeing the movie and quickly closing your eyes in one spot (you’ll know when, trust me!)
The Cove mainly follows Ric O’Barry, who captured and trained five of the dolphins from the popular 1960′s show Flipper. He is now an activist working to help free the dolphins and the film crew follows Ric and some friends who are trying to out what is going on in Taiji, Japan.
There is a spot that no one can see what is going on and these ‘watch dogs’ of sorts stay up top and fight and yell at anyone that tries to come close, with or without a camera. They have know they are going wrong, but they do it anyway. It is explained more in the movie as to why these people slaughter dolphins and why they think they are “helping”. But holy crap, talk about pulling on the emotion strings.
I am definitely not a vegetarian (though I sometimes wish I had the will power for it) nor am I an animal activist. Of course I think torture of any animal is wrong and I’m really not one for one sided documentaries or ‘facts’ being shoved in my face telling me that I HAVE to believe it. This documentary was definitely one sided, but I honestly don’t think I need or want to see the other side of what is going on in the minds of these dolphin slaughters. Also, there wasn’t any type of “here believe these facts!” shoved at me. There was video to prove it. And it’s not one of those Michael Moore films that is just edited well and put together to get someone on their side (or at least I believe that.)
Part of me doesn’t know how to react when it comes to the theme parks like SeaWorld. However, there isn’t enough money in the world to get me in the water with any type of fish… dolphin.. etc. Nope. Not for me. I am not a fan of looking at or swimming with fish. They are weird creatures to me, but they deserve to live with the families just like human beings do.
This is not me stepping on any type of soap box. I just think you should check out this documentary. If you’ve seen it, what did you think? Eye opening? Biased?
For more information, check out The Cove website or catch them on Twitter.