DOCUMENTARY FILM: The Cove

I had to work up the courage to view this film after it was highly recommended to me by a snorkeling friend.  When we were in Indonesia, we saw reefs that had been dynamited to stun fish as a hunting technique. The reefs are left in utter ruin and take years to return to the nurturing role we all need.

In this documentary, a Japanese fishing village on the sea takes advantage of a small cove which serves as a wet corral.  The dolphins are herded into the cove by the use of unpleasant sounds.  Long poles inserted into the water are banged on and the dolphins, highly sensitive to noise, swim the only direction left to them, the narrow cove. A market is made in the shallow water to sell them to dolphin-swim enclosures and sea life parks all over the world.

Those that aren't selected are then knifed and the waves run red with their blood, and another market is made as the fish are laid out for selection by fish wholesalers.

Why not use single long-line techniques and limit the amount of fish taken?  Amazingly, the townsfolk assert that their hunt is approved by the government as a control measure to prevent dolphin over-population. That's got to be preposterous.

Luc Bresson and his film team managed to enter the cove area during the yearly "harvest" and film this grotesque cultural hunt.

It reminds me of the brutal retrieval of bird eggs on outer islands in Scotland.  Protein is vital. I am sad about that.  I don't' know if I can eat dolphin ever again. I wish I could be a vegetarian. When I try to, after about a week I get very hungry for a beef burger; my body struggles hard because it wants what it wants, I guess.