The Cove

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.