23,000 Dolphins are slaughtered each year in a hidden cove in Taiji, Japan. The Japanese government covers it up. No one could get in.
Until now.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Sw5qgVp0jng]
[UPDATE: Dolphin Slaughter in Taiji’s ‘Cove’ Suspended]!
The Cove exposes an atrocity of unimaginable brutality. The dolphin slaughter depicted here is committed yearly and without knowledge of the general Japanese public, even though they could be buying highly-toxic mercury-laden dolphin meat disguised as fish from their local supermarkets.
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Barred access to the site, the film crew (which includes most notably the man who trained Flipper, Richard O’Barry) was forced to utilize covert military tactics and equipment, including thermal heat sensors and the help of two world-class free divers, to accomplish their mission.
The Cove is activist film at it’s finest: exposing this dirty-little-secret despite systematic intimidation and institutional attempts to cover it up. The film is part of the documentary selection for this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
>> See Also: Japan Accuses Animal Planet of EcoTerrorism Prior to “Whale Wars” Premiere
To learn more and take action, visit the campaign website: savejapandolphins.com. The film won’t be available to the public until post-festival distribution, so keep your eye out for it later in the year.
Also read more at nymag.com.
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[Update 1/25/09]: The Cove has received the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Let us be their voice – stop the killing, the butchering, the absolute terror.
Please check out our website and follow the links there, sign petitions, start websites, educate others, please be their voice – we will be heard.
I just watched “The Cove.” I really didn’t know anything about this and I was truly disturbed after I watched this documentary……really digusting that the government would cover something like this up. To watch these dolphins being slaughtered like that was really sick…what is wrong with this people??? Not to mention the people that are being exposed to all the high levels of mercury….just digusting!
Wow!! too cruel! unbelievable!!
I also love the cattle as my good friend,
but in the world every people eat beef , I hate it!
We have to stop killing any animals, and plants!!
We should make science technology more advanced and
realize that all food is chemical supplement!
Glad this film was made and glad it is being discussed.
I live in Japan and let me just add a few points – Japanese people DO NOT eat dolphin meat. There are 120 million people here and they eat normal things. The slaughter of 23,000 dolphins at Taiji at this event, once a year, is not going to feed the general population. Dolphin meat is not on the menu at MacDonalds in Tokyo if that’s what you thought.
The racist comments on this thread are not going to help a single dolphin. Instead it may very well be the very reason why this issue is so difficult to debate in Japan. People here are just like people everywhere, and they DO NOT like to be told what to do or what to eat. What if a bunch of clever Japanese activists filmed the brutal cattle slaugther in the US, do you think that would change US meat eating habits or US government policy? How many millions of cattle and pigs are slaughtered every day just because some of you prefer to eat meat? Google for “downer cattle” if you need facts that have been covered up for many years in the US.
Again, this is all terrible slaughter, and it deserves to be better known, and hopefully stopped, thanks for posting about it.
I saw The Cove last evening at The Nantucket Film Festival, in Massachusetts and it was the best documentary I have ever seen. The movie, although heartwrenching, captivates the audience immediately and brings us to a point of wanting to help stop put an end to the needless brutality going on in Taiji, Japan. I applaude all the activists for their courage and endurance to shed the ugly light on The Cove…this movie will make a difference and anyone that goes to see it will want to help make a difference as well. Thank you for your amazing energy!! I will do all that I can to support this horrific, needless brutality.
今日フィルムフェステイバルで”cove”を見ました．The Japanese are heartless. と思われてもしかたがないとおもいます。イルカが赤ちゃんイルカも含めてとても残酷に殺されて、死にきれないイルカたちがのたうち回る血の海の中をシュノーケルをつけた漁師が潜り、私はずいぶんと長いこと感じなかった怒りに震える感情を覚えました．日本の人々に伝えようと思います．太地でなにがおきているのかを。
I just saw the film “Cove ” at the film festival at Maui film festioval. I am Japanese. I think people think “Japanese are heartless”after seeing this film.Many of dolphins kills really cruel way includs baby dolphins, they suffer a lot,,,, the cove turn to red color by the blood of dolphins, and fisherman swim with snorkel in the blood. Their heart and emotion are numbed. I tell this about Japanese people. Japanese must know what is happening, and should stop eat toxic dolphin meat.
@fred: I like to promote causes I think are important. Profit doesn’t have anything to do with it.
The first sentence tells you this information lacks objectivity and is designed to generate a profit for those promoting it:
“The Cove exposes an atrocity of unimaginable brutality.”
very effective marketing, but IMO sleezy.
Help! I cannot find any reference to the “Greek Era”
It is absolutely horrible that the fisherman in Taiji carry out this barbaric act of slaughtering thousands of migratory dolphin. And, it is even more dispicable that the Japanese government condone this slaughter.
This barbaric act if like that of the Bataan Death March, during which tens of thousands of captured American and Filipino soldiers were beheaded, disembowled and raped on their journey to prisoner of war camps.