"The Cove" and what Singaporeans can do

Mass slaughter of dolphins exposed
Crew used commando-style tactics to film documentary of 23,000 dolphins being speared en masse in Taiji, Japan
john lui, The Straits Times 31 Aug 09;

He ends the telephone interview with Life!, with a wish that Singaporeans will avoid live dolphin shows. He notes that Singapore has them and that more are in the pipeline. 'Consumers have all the power. Don't buy a ticket,' he says.

Eco-documentaries are rarely so riveting as The Cove. The audience sees a crack team of experts sneaking into highly secret places to plant high-tech hidden cameras while dodging guards and police.

They release unmanned drone aircraft, also equipped with cameras. They appear as ghostly images on their own night-vision devices.

They return furtively the following night to retrieve their equipment and then make an escape, armed with proof that something awful is going on.

The act they captured in 2007 is the annual slaughter of dolphins in the small town of Taiji, Japan, during which 23,000 of the mammals are herded over a month-long period into a cove and speared en masse, turning the waters red.

The covert filming is now the most talked-about aspect of The Cove, which has been warmly received in Canada, the United States and Australia, and won several awards for documentary film-making.

But when the film was first conceived, the crime- caper angle never came to mind, says director Louie Psihoyos, a film-maker and photographer.

'Initially, we filmed ourselves for the 'making-of' section for the DVD,' he tells Life! on the telephone from Boulder, Colorado. But during editing, the team 'got chills' from the footage of the team's evade- and-escape tactics and decided to include it in the movie, he says.

The film is co-produced by the Oceanic Preservation Society, a non-profit organisation promoting awareness of the dangers facing the world's oceans. Its executive director Psihoyos says the US$5 million (S$7.2 million) used to make The Cove came from billionaire entrepreneur-philanthropist Jim Clark.

Many Westerners have been protesting the activities in Taiji for decades. Taiji, together with the Solomon Islands, is also a world centre for the capture and export of dolphins for live water theme park shows.

In 2007, actress Hayden Panettiere, from the sci-fi TV series Heroes, swam out towards captured dolphins in Taiji in a show of protest. Though she left the town without being arrested, she was confronted by angry fishermen, the same ones who tried to intimidate The Cove's crew when they tried to film openly.

The film tries to explain the murky issues surrounding the continued slaughter. The Japanese government and Taiji locals defend the practice with various arguments, including saying it is part of the town's cultural heritage and that dolphins and whales are the traditional meats of the Japanese.

Rubbish, says Mr Ric O'Barry, a consultant on the documentary's shoot. 'The dolphin hunt began only in 1933,' he says. The film also shows him playing footage of the hunt to passers-by on Tokyo's streets using a portable DVD player.

'They are as shocked as anyone from Paris, New York or Singapore,' he says.

He is a former dolphin trainer who caught and trained the creatures that appeared in the iconic 1960s TV show Flipper. Now an animal-rights activist, he had a change of heart after he realised how miserable the intelligent, emotional animals were in captivity. Today, he works to undo the craze for live dolphin shows he helped spawn decades ago.

He believes the real reason for the hunt is to get rid of competition in an ocean where fish stocks have plummeted.

In addition to the ethical problem, there is the health issue. Dolphin meat from the hunt, which is sold in supermarkets around the town, is highly contaminated with toxic mercury, he adds. Dolphins eat fish which ingest mercury from industrial run-off.

He ends the telephone interview with Life!, with a wish that Singaporeans will avoid live dolphin shows. He notes that Singapore has them and that more are in the pipeline.

'Consumers have all the power. Don't buy a ticket,' he says.