The Cove Movie : documenting dolphin hunting

The Cove movie documents the capure and slaughter of dolphins. Image from Flickr.

The 2010 Oscars winner for best documentary, The Cove, is much more than just a documentary movie. In making it, the filmmakers used technology and tactics much more at home in a spy movie.

What is The Cove movie?

The Cove documents the killing of dolphins in a national park of Japan that has come to be known as, simply, "the cove." The Cove movie takes the point of view of dolphin activists, and cost a very significant amount of money to make - mostly funded by a cash advance from private individuals. The town of Taiji, Japan, where The Cove was made is a dolphin tourist destination, where dolphins are captured and trained for aquarium use. However, there is also the national park cove that not even Japanese citizens can see during hunting season.

Flipper trainer teamed up to expose The Cove

The unlikely team that made The Cove movie started with Ric O' Barry, the former dolphin trainer most famous for capturing and training the five dolphins used in the 1960's series Flipper. O'Barry has since become an anti-captivity activist, including founding the Dolphin Project, which has a goal of releasing dolphins from captivity. Ric O'Berry met The Cove movie's director Psihoyos at a marine conference. As Ric outlines in the movie,w hen they discovered The Cove, they were told by the fisherman that "if the world finds out what goes on here, we'll be shut down." Armed with the knowledge of the yearly killing of dolphins, O'Barry, Psihoyos and their team set out to make The Cove movie. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "The Cove Movie : documenting dolphin hunting"