The Cove...

Every once in a while I will watch a documentary that just makes me angry and sad at the same time.

A while ago, it was "Sharkwater." That was an excellent film about the shark finning industry in Costa Rica.

Tonight I watched another one..."The Cove."

"The Cove" is about a small town in Japan, Taiji, that captures and slaughters dolphins everyday from September to March. They scare the dolphins with noise on their boats and trap them in a cove. They then let dolphin trainers pick out dolphins to send to aquariums around the world. The ones that don't get picked?? They get dragged around the corner of the cove to another smaller cove that is completely blocked from view by large cliffs.

They don't let anyone see what happens over there. If anyone tries to take pictures, they make them leave. If you try to go out there, they will chase you away.

So the makers of the movie set up to get footage of what goes on in that other, smaller cove. They placed lots of hidden cameras. They couldn't get out there to do this any easy way, so they had freedivers dive under water into the small cove and placed them that way.

What the footage revealed was just sickening. The fisherman drag the dolphins into the smaller cove and then just spear them over and over again until they die. Often, the dolphins will try to swim away, bleeding profusely as they swim, and then drown as they go into shock.

It was absolutely revolting watching these images on my TV. The water was soaked in blood worse than any "Jaws" film could try to show. The sea was literally red.

I've long thought that the Japanese need to be reigned in when it comes to their treatment of the animals in the ocean and the ocean in general. This film just continues to reinforce that sentiment of mine. It was horrible watching these creatures...which many scientists believe may be the most intelligent animals on the planet...being slaughtered in the way that they were.