It was 2009 when I learned about the secret of The Cove. My mom had just become the Marketing Director for the newly started Naples International Film Festival in Florida. Its tagline was to “Expect the Extraordinary.” I was 11 and I, along with a wide-ranging audience, was not expecting this –

An upwards of 20,000 dolphins are being slaughtered annually in a secret cove in Taiji, Wakayama, Japan by the country’s whaling industry.

I had never questioned where dolphins came from in aquatic parks or aquariums. I never thought to stop and think about what it felt like for them to live in captivity. I was simply too engrossed in the show that was put on and how beautiful the creatures were.

That was the problem. So many of us don’t question what we are happy with. I, especially as an 11-year-old girl, had no idea of these animals’ pasts.

I never expected this extraordinary. The lady next to me, probably in her late seventies, couldn’t either. She started crying but I didn’t even want to blink. I didn’t want to take my eyes away from this horror. I wanted to know everything.

Director Louis Psihoyos created the documentary, The Cove, in 2009 with help from former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry. O’Barry begins the film talking about his time at Miami Seaquarium and his work with the five dolphins who were the stars of the American classic TV show Flipper. He recounted on the time that Kathy, the dolphin who often played Flipper, possibly committed suicide in his arms. That’s when everything he knew about his work changed. In 1970 O’Barry founded The Dolphin Project in aim to educate the public on dolphin captivity and to help free dolphins where possible. After Psihoyos and O’Barry met they got together a team to travel to the highly restricted areas around the cove in Taiji in order to uncover the truth behind the annual dolphin slaughter. The hunt is said to bring in high revenue by selling bottlenose dolphins to aquariums and parks worldwide and then killing the rest adding an extra profit from vending the dolphin meat in local stores. The Japanese government is highly involved and fails to tell the public how much mercury is really in their daily meals at local school lunches, grocery store items, and restaurant dishes.

The film took special equipment and a determined team to go behind enemy lines to graphically show what really happens in the titular cove. The most powerful scene, in my opinion, is a translated conversation between the Japanese fishermen about killing the dolphins. It was too casual of a conversation to have before slaughtering thousands of innocent creatures.

The film won an Academy Award at the 82^nd annual event and the U.S. Audience Award at the 25^th annual Sundance Film Festival.

In the film Richard O’Barry states, “If you aren’t an activist you’re an inactivist.”

The most important thing is to become aware and knowledgeable about your surroundings. It’s crucial to question, to inquire, and to expand your mindset about the real world and about the real things occurring every day.

What can you do next?

Watch the documentary:http://www.thecovemovie.com/buy_the_dvd.htm

Follow The Cove crew on social media: https://www.facebook.com/TheCove

Sign the pledge: https://dolphinproject.net/take-action/save-japan-dolphins/