The Cove

I've always wanted to attend Sundance Film Festival. One of the biggest hits this year was the documentary film The Cove. It is supposed to be part action/adventure and part horror film. It is about dolphins. It traces America's love for dolphins from the television show Flipper, to sea world, to dolphin therapy and eventually to the actual subject of the film, a cove off the coast of Japan in a quaint town called Taijii where dolphins are capture and slaughtered at an alarming rate. Over 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered annually in this cove. I hear the film is wonderful, exciting and horrible. Difficult to watch.

Louie Psihoyos's (the director) adventure to get to the cove is the exciting part. The cove is guarded 24 hours a day. You have to go through tunnels to get there. I hear it has a James Bond quality. What he filmed when he arrived at the cove, a place never filmed before, is the horrible part. When dolphins are slaughtered they scream. I'm not sure if I could take this, but a sense of duty as concerned Earthling binds me to seek it out.

Some of the dolphins are captured alive. A live dolphin can be sold for $150.00.00. If you've been to sea world, you probably have seen a dolphin that came from this cove. These are not only beautiful and cute animals but sentient creatures capable of thought, communication and self awareness.