The Cove

Pygathrix

Pygathrix

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I've seen this film from 2009 recently. It is about the capture of dolphins for the dolphinarium trade in a Japanese town called Taiji, and the subsequent killing of thousands of dolphins for meat, which happens every year.

Part of the film is Mission Impossible style showing how the investigators managed to get footage of the killing in a highly secretive area. The operation was the idea of Ric O'Berry who was the original trainer for the Flipper series, who has since been on the road to Damascus. He made a very good point that when Flipper started in the 1960s the only place you could see captive dolphins was Miami Seaquarium, now there are hundreds of similar places across the world.

The film is in places sentimental and melodramatic but I found it very informative and moving and it has quite put me off dolphinaria (I'm not the Born Free/ZooCheck type).

Anyone else seen it and what did you think?

http://www.thecovemovie.com/
 
I really enjoyed watching it and agree with the fight against the slaughter. However I am not sold on the complete abolition of captive cetaceans (although I do have a mixed view on this). Nevertheless it gets you thinking.

I thought that it was very nicely put together, with added drama that made it so much more than a documentary.

A good watch if you're interested in marine biology etc.

N.B Marineland of Florida was the first dolphinarium, not Miami Seaquarium. It opened in the 1930s as an underwater filming centre, but becames a tourist attraction in the 50s.
 
Apart from the ethics of keeping cetaceans in captivity at all, there is a serious conservation point. Most zoo populations of larger animals eg big cats, great apes, and now perhaps even elephants, are self-sustaining. Dolphin breeding is still not widespread and survival and longevity in captivity not brilliant. If they were there would not be the need to replenish with such large numbers of wild-caught animals. I would be interested in the response of dolphinaria to the question of the provenance of their animals - involvement with these Japanese suppliers would certainly embarass them even while they trumpet the usual conservation platitudes.
 
It would be interesting to see how many dolphinaria are linked to the current japanese captures, as many other areas have been used to capture dolphins in the past.

I would bet that Seaworld don't take any recent captures any more because have a large number of dolphins from their 3 parks, orlando, san diego and san antonio (shows and exhibits), discovery cove and aquatica. It may be an issue for some of the smaller parks though.
 
yeah, i saw it a couple of months ago. its scarry because while dolphinaria are declining in western countries they are becoming very popular in tropical countries such as jamacia and they use wild caught dolphins.

their attitude that dolphins are just "sea rats" is disturbing, considering that a study last year found that dolphins are the most intelligent animlas on earth.

great film though - made me cry.
 
There has been a discussion on the cove in the "will whales or dolphins ever return to the UK thread" over the last couple of days if you're interested.
 
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I watched the cove in the hope that it would put me off dolphinaria, but it didn’t. I’ve never seen a dolphin enclosure that I’m completely happy with but I can’t bring myself to feel strongly against the keeping of cetaceans in captivity either. I hoped this film would persuade me against the keeping dolphins in captivity, but it didn’t
In fact, I found the message in this film to be confused. It started off arguing that the capture and sale of live dolphins to dolphinaria, subsidized the capture and killing of dolphins for food. The logic being that if dolphinaria stop buying dolphins, the capture of dolphins for food would also cease. It ended up saying that the Japanese killed dolphins (and continued waling) because they don’t like being told what to do by other nations; a kind of two figures (one finger if you’re not British) up at the world. In this case, a stop to the sale of live dolphins to dolphinaria would do nothing to stop the slaughter of dolphins for food. Thus the film ended up arguing against itself.
The film also claimed that one of the original Flippers committed suicide by holding its breath. This raises two points; 1) dolphins were once thought to be voluntary breathers but this is not now considered to be the case (I learnt that from this site. Maybe someone will confirm this). 2) If we accept that flipper hated captivity so much she killed herself, then we should also accept that all the dolphins that don’t kill themselves are happy in captivity.
One final (tongue in cheek) point. Some people talk about dolphins as if they’re so cleaver they’d put Einstein in the shade. If they’re so clever, why are they so willing to jump through hoops for a fish? I’m sure humans in the same situation would just refuse to perform and therefore, be of no entertainment value.
 
The Cove is the most stupid "documentary" film I've ever seen. For starters North America (not including Canada) cannot import captured animals. Canada haven't had any captured Orca's since the 80's I believe. The animals killed and captured in Taiji stay in Japan or go to China, Dubai and Russia. Cetaceans do still choose to breathe. The conditions that Kathy (O'Barry's favourite Flipper dolphin) were kept in were atrocious, any animal would've stopped breathing via choice.

There are many Dolphins that are nearly twice the average wild age and have bred very successfully. Like I've said elsewhere, Dolphins breed brilliantly in captivity but there are places that simply do NOT even try to breed Dolphins or keep single sex community's, wrongly thinking that these are better than mixed groups (Seriously, have you seen what sexually frustrated males do to each other?). SO yeah, O'Barry screwed up big time in my mind with The Cove. If he'd kept his idiotic anti-captivity views out of it and focused on the slaughter and facility's with Dolphins ACTUALLY caught from Taiji then yeah go ahead. Okay, SeaWorld had a few back in the 70's I believe and guess what, they're just fine (I believe a couple of them are still alive). But seeing as they can't import captured animals any more... it's impossible for them to have anyone from Taiji. (Captain Sully the recently rescued Pilot Whale was a rescue, not a capture and SW California was approached, they didn't ask for him.)
 
Ned said:
I watched the cove in the hope that it would put me off dolphinaria, but it didn’t. I’ve never seen a dolphin enclosure that I’m completely happy with but I can’t bring myself to feel strongly against the keeping of cetaceans in captivity either. I hoped this film would persuade me against the keeping dolphins in captivity, but it didn’t
In fact, I found the message in this film to be confused. It started off arguing that the capture and sale of live dolphins to dolphinaria, subsidized the capture and killing of dolphins for food. The logic being that if dolphinaria stop buying dolphins, the capture of dolphins for food would also cease. It ended up saying that the Japanese killed dolphins (and continued waling) because they don’t like being told what to do by other nations; a kind of two figures (one finger if you’re not British) up at the world. In this case, a stop to the sale of live dolphins to dolphinaria would do nothing to stop the slaughter of dolphins for food. Thus the film ended up arguing against itself.
The film also claimed that one of the original Flippers committed suicide by holding its breath. This raises two points; 1) dolphins were once thought to be voluntary breathers but this is not now considered to be the case (I learnt that from this site. Maybe someone will confirm this). 2) If we accept that flipper hated captivity so much she killed herself, then we should also accept that all the dolphins that don’t kill themselves are happy in captivity.
One final (tongue in cheek) point. Some people talk about dolphins as if they’re so cleaver they’d put Einstein in the shade. If they’re so clever, why are they so willing to jump through hoops for a fish? I’m sure humans in the same situation would just refuse to perform and therefore, be of no entertainment value.
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I agree with this statement.
I was also slightly confused as to why they had to kill the rest rather than either sell them all off (if they are so strongly desired by these parks who apparently get through dolphins so fast) or set free. Surely it's more effort to kill them all than just remove the net? And due to the realisation of the mercury in the meat, I would have thought that the market for the meat must be in decline.

I think they should either have just focused on exposing the killings or the anti-captivity message because I am sure there a quite a few people who agree with parts of it, but not all, which lessens the effect of the film.
 
I agree the message became a little mixed. Initially it seemed to be berating the capture of dolphins for exhibition, and the killing for meat was not the main purpose of the hunt. Then later on it seemed more like the other way around. The film states that there is no genuine demand for dolphin meat, and that it is passed off as whale meat, which is popular. Hopefully the publicity given to the high levels of heavy metals in the meat might cause the Japanese public to respond.

What I thought was not in doubt was that taking place today is the large scale unsustainable inhumane slaughter of intelligent mammals, which is a serious conservation issue regardless of where you stand on the keeping of cetaceans in captivity.
 
It IS the other way round. The hunt comes before the Dolphinaria. Even Whale meat is unpopular in Japan. Both are now so filled with Mercury that... they're poisoning their children with "Free School Meals". Why the captive side of it was thrust forward, was because of damned O'Barry and his "I got sacked so they should be closed" ideas. Seriously, the guy once knew what he was talking about and really doesn't now.

Taiji hunts sell the Dolphin Calves for captivity if they're are places interested, if not they ALL get killed and sold for food. There's been reasonable enough evidence that they're even passing Dolphin and Whale meat as pork and beef, claiming the animal was kept and killed in special ways to all who question it.

Dolphins are extremely clever. They have problem solving abilities and many other traits that could compare them to chimpanzees (EG Languages, teaching/learning and especially sharing). There are many facilities that hold dolphins for research and still train them to do back flips etc, because HEY training is a type of enrichment.


All this film did was shove it in peoples faces that Taiji is real and it happens. Unfortunately what it did was chase the Killers out to sea. They now have netted pens out in the middle of the ocean which they move every night so people like O'Barry can't find them. So god knows what they're killing out there. The general Japanese Public didn't know what was going on til this Film and hopefully they will speak out (like half the world knows how Whales are killed with exploding harpoon tips - yet the Japanese public don't. Like how China hides information, Japan does too).
 
Pygathrix said:
Apart from the ethics of keeping cetaceans in captivity at all, there is a serious conservation point. Most zoo populations of larger animals eg big cats, great apes, and now perhaps even elephants, are self-sustaining. Dolphin breeding is still not widespread and survival and longevity in captivity not brilliant.
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This is not the case I get more than a little irrated that dispite having posted this kind on information in various threads of this site the above statemnts continue to be made.

In the case of the US and Europe where figures are more actuate most bottle-nosed dolphins in captivity are captive bred moreover no animals have been imported into these countries from the wild for many, many years; in Europe this was in 1984.

Captive survivorship is the same as the wild. This has been published in peer review. See article with the references here:

http://www.rosmarus.com/Download/Survival.pdf

Also this was the subject of a successful complaint by Dr Maragret Klionowska to the then Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against a 'dying to entertain' poster produced by the Born Free Foundation in the 1980s.

Very few dolphins from drive fisheries have been imported into Europe and none as far as I am aware to the USA. Two drive fisheries animals where imported into the UK by Terry Nutkins for Knowsley Safari Park in 1981. See link to Radio Times 'Animal Magic' article.

Entam Dolphinariums - Rhyl - Knowsley - Woburn

The EAAM which includes many members who operate dolphinaria in Europe have put out a very clear statement regarding this matter here:

European Association for Aquatic Mammals - EAAM - Statement on Japanese Drive Fisheries

The captive population of bottle-nose dolphins in the US and Europe is indeed self-sustaining.
 
John Dineley said:
This is not the case I get more than a little irrated that dispite having posted this kind on information in various threads of this site the above statemnts continue to be made.

In the case of the US and Europe where figures are more actuate most bottle-nosed dolphins in captivity are captive bred moreover no animals have been imported into these countries from the wild for many, many years; in Europe this was in 1984.

Captive survivorship is the same as the wild.
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That's an interesting paper and I stand corrected, however the named institutions seem to be mainly North American/European. It would be interesting to see such data for Asian dolphinaria which seem to be the source of the demand for these Japanese caught dolphins.
 
Pygathrix said:
That's an interesting paper and I stand corrected, however the named institutions seem to be mainly North American/European. It would be interesting to see such data for Asian dolphinaria which seem to be the source of the demand for these Japanese caught dolphins.
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Yes it appears to be Asian dolphinaria as there is no market in the US or Europe.

The Russians tend to have animals from the Black Sea but have also started to breed reasonable well. The Russians also supply dolphinaria in places like Turkey.

Ocean Park in Hong Kong had some animals from the drive-fisheries; if you look at the Radio Times article I linked you will see they had four in 1981 of which two went to the UK. Not sure of the situation now as Ocean Park appears to have a stable, long-term captive population.

Of course, Japanese dolphinaria may be getting animals from this drive-fisheries and I know some went Thailand many years ago to Safari World.

But remember, and it has been mentioned elsewhere, these drive fisheries have been going on for years around the world and are primary for meat for human consumption and cultural trophies, e.g. the Solomon Islands. The dolphinaria issue is a bit of a 'red herring' (sorry bad pun) in fact you could say that the ones that end up in an aquarium got the best deal as they would have been killed.

The blunt fact is that if dolphinaria didn't exist these hunts will still continue they were never operated to supply animals for zoological collections and this is just a ironic side-line which the animal-rights group focus on so as not to being attacked for being engaged in 'cultural fascism'.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_drive_hunting]Dolphin drive hunting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
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Pygathrix said:
I agree the message became a little mixed. Initially it seemed to be berating the capture of dolphins for exhibition, and the killing for meat was not the main purpose of the hunt. Then later on it seemed more like the other way around. The film states that there is no genuine demand for dolphin meat, and that it is passed off as whale meat, which is popular. Hopefully the publicity given to the high levels of heavy metals in the meat might cause the Japanese public to respond.

What I thought was not in doubt was that taking place today is the large scale unsustainable inhumane slaughter of intelligent mammals, which is a serious conservation issue regardless of where you stand on the keeping of cetaceans in captivity.
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Agreed. :) I think they took advantage of the situation and added in some of their more personal issues to the mix. It's a shame, because I would happily promote the viewing of the video to people I know etc, if it didn't have such a anti-captive message, because although from time to time I have my issues with various dolphinaria, I am not anti them.
 
Has anyone else read the story on (Sky Text) about the people of Taiji eating the dolphins
are now poisoning themselves as when they were tested they were found to have very high levels of Mercury in thier bodies.
Scientist say that the Mercury in thier body has come from Dolphin meat as they seem to eat alot.
 
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Yep, it's well known. BUT again, the Japanese Government are selling Dolphin meat as Whale meat. Whale meat is dying out in popularity, so the cheaper Dolphin meat is saving the government money. They are also giving children free school dinners... it's Dolphin meat they're eating with astounding amounts of mercury. They refuse to comment on it, they refuse to accept that mercury is poisoning their children. It's not just Taiji, it's the whole of Japan.
 
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