Ocean Sentry
A brutally honest and effortlessly fascinating film about one specific cove in Taiji, Japan, in which approximately 23,000 dolphins are killed every year.
I had the chance to chat with Richard O’Barry about ‘The Cove’, and how amazing this documentary is. Richard is a bit controversial because back in the day when he worked as a trainer on the television series ‘Flipper,’ he took part in capturing dolphins. Once realizing just how violent and unnatural these captures were, O’Barry decided years later to take a stand and bring to light these acts of slaughter. Please do yourself a favor and read the interview and then do your part to make a change!
I saw it a few weeks ago and it was just incredible. It was so alarming, the images and all of that. I mean, I think the first words that came out of my mouth were, ‘This is upsetting because it’s such a cruel thing to be doing to these animals.’ When I saw it I was moved right away, and so people who see this, you have to be almost a robot not to be moved.
O’Barry: One of the problems in the past has been that other groups of people who have gone there and sort of attacked the Japanese on cruelty issues or food culture issues, that doesn’t fly. They want to keep that argument going because they can win that one, like, ‘Oh, well, you have bullfighting. You have this. You eat chickens and cows. Leave us alone.’ Cultural imperialism. But the mercury issue cuts through all that. That’s the Achilles heel and that’s what will bring it down, not food culture issues or anything else, really. It’s really about supply and demand. It’s Coca-Cola or San Pellegrino or whatever. If I’m wearing ivory I’m the reason the elephant is becoming extinct and not the guy in the jungle with the shotgun. Me the consumer. So it is true with this dolphin captivity issue. That’s one of these things that we ask people. ‘Don’t buy a ticket. You’re doing something there because it’s based on supply and demand.’ It’s a $2 billion a year industry. People don’t ever ask where these dolphins come from. They always ask what their names are or what do they eat and all the wrong questions. No. Sea World is not going to Taijii and doing this but their colleagues are and other dolphinarium around there. It’s these captures in Taijii, you saw some of the captures, that’s the economic underpinning to the slaughter. For example, there were twelve captured. I have the contract. I know that they were sold for a $154k each to Ocean World in The Dominican Republic. The dead dolphin only sold for $500 or $500 bucks. So if the captive industry were to get involved and simply police their own industry it would shut down the slaughter. As soon as I found out about the Taijii Twelve, as we call them, I went to the Dominican Republic, went on television, and took out a full page in the newspaper asking the president in an open letter to him to not allow the dolphins in the country. We were successful but Ocean World filed a $300 million lawsuit against me and my employer, Earth Island Institute. I go to court on that November 2nd. So as cruel and usual as those captures and that slaughter is, if you speak out against it you get sued by the industry who is supposed to be protecting dolphins. The whole thing is fucking bizarre.
Outrageous. It’s like everyone almost has a hand in it.
O’Barry: Yeah. There’s so much money in it. There’s so much money in these dolphins. It’s $2 billion alone in the USA in profit. That industry would tell you if you went there and asked them, ‘Why are you displaying dolphins at Sea World?’ ‘Well, we only protect what we know. We have to sensitize people so that they will protect the dolphins.’ It sounds logical until you go to Japan and look around and you realize that there are fifty dolphinariums there, fifty. More than all of Europe put together. Yet when I’m standing there at the cove watching the slaughter I don’t see any one of those…I mean, fifty dolphinariums translates into hundreds of millions of people who have been educated and now we’re going to protect them. Well, where the fuck are they? How could the largest slaughter in the world be going on in this country where you have the largest amount of dolphinariums?
So then including Sea World and any other place where you can swim with the dolphins, touch the dolphins, you’re basically saying that somehow or another those dolphins come from Taijii?
O’Barry: No, we’re not saying that. Yeah, many of those facilities…China is getting most of them. The last group went to Mexico. Before that, the group went to Turkey. In the ’80’s there were some that went from Taiji to the Miami Sea Aquarium where I worked, have gone to the US Navy. The Dolphins of War program in San Diego. They came from them. Today they’re not getting them. You couldn’t bring them into the United States, but I used to capture dolphins. That’s how I began my career. I captured over a hundred for the Miami Sea Aquarium. I can tell you that all of the captures are violent.
Sure. It’s like a struggle.
O’Barry: Well, if you go there and ask them they’ll say, ‘No. These captures are very scientific and humane.’ There’s no such thing as a humane capture. That’s an oxymoron. They’re all violent. So it’s the captivity industry. When I go there and I watch these slaughters going on, these captures and I see thirty dolphin trainers standing in the water, the bloody water assisting these guys I’m really more angry with them than I am with the fisherman. The fisherman, because of the language the character for dolphin, the character for whale, really translates into monster fish. So they’re really thinking fish, but the dolphin trainers, they know better. They’re self-aware. They give them names. They look them in the eye everyday and feed them three times a day and so they know better. That’s an industry that doesn’t police itself. The World Association of Zoos and Aquarium, the American Zoological Society, The International Marine Animal Trainers Association, they can stop that slaughter any time that they want to. They have a position and they’re position is that they’re against it, but they don’t do anything about it. You have to actually do something. Look, if I can show up…I don’t have any money. If I can show from Miami, Florida, if I can do that certainly those fifty dolphinariums in Japan can do it, but they don’t.
The scene in the film where you enter the room where they’re speaking about –
O’Barry: The International Whaling Commission. The IWC.
Right. When you walked with the monitor, did you intend it to go down like that?
O’Barry: I knew that I would get thrown out. I was literally thrown into the street.
Were you planning to say anything?
O’Barry: No.
So that happened the way that you planned it?
O’Barry: Yeah. I was trying to bring attention. You have to understand, the International Whaling Commission, everyone in that room from all over the world, they’re meeting today and then tomorrow in Portugal this year, and they’re all talking about one thousand whales in the southern ocean. That’s what whaling is. Over here you have twenty three thousand being slaughtered every year and nobody in that room is looking at that, thinking about it or talking about it. It’s not even on the agenda. Dolphins are whales. Size doesn’t matter. That’s what I’m trying to show them. ‘Take a look at this.’ But they didn’t want to see it. They literally threw me out into the street.
What was your scariest moment either during the filming of this or the entire time trying to get this accomplished?
O’Barry: I’ve been going there for four years before the film company showed up and I continued to go. I just came back from there. The scariest moments are usually when I’m there alone and I’m wearing sometimes a dress and a wig, hiding and trying to protect myself from the Japanese mafia. The Yakuza. They’re the real danger. They’re the ones who are very involved in the whaling and the fisheries industry and it’s the young Yakuza want to be who wants to make a name for himself that I worry about. I don’t worry about the fisherman that much or the police. I’m really wearing those disguises to hide from the Yakuza.
Have there been attempts made on you?
O’Barry: I don’t know. I can’t tell. I mean, when I’m there I’m very stealthy. I have many costumes and I’ve been in the lagoon many times before the film crew, but I didn’t have the capability of photographing like Louie [Psihoyos] who’s a master of photography and has unlimited resources. I don’t have any of that. So I still go there and I still do that and I’ll continue to do that until…as long as I can, until we shut it down.
What message would you want to give viewers of this film, you’re one shot message to everyone about it?
O’Barry: Well, I try to get people to go to this website and all of that information is there. You can take action there. They can actually take action. I think there’s some great hope in President Obama picking up the phone and calling the Prime Minister of Japan and saying, ‘That’s it. We can’t do this anymore.’ The United States has been opposed to whaling all the way back to Nixon, but not really. We don’t actually do anything about it. We have a public position. We’re opposed to it, but under the table we’re selling them beef and such and we don’t want to rock the boat and so we don’t actually take any action. I think that could change with Biden and Obama. So you can write to Obama at our website. We make it easy for them to take action.
Any other stories that you might have from the filming of this documentary?
O’Barry: There’s a bunch of them.
When you were questioned by the police in that scene and you told them, ‘It’s not me. I’m not here –’ we’re you out there for that operation?
O’Barry: Oh, yeah. Sure. I’m leading the charge, but they don’t know that.
But do they know it and are just kind of going along?
O’Barry: I think so. Those four particular policemen, I think they really get it now. I actually have a really good relationship with them. I have a daughter, four years old from China, who I bring there. My wife. And they like her. They bring her presents. They’re starting to understand, ‘Yeah, this is serious problem.’ The mercury issue. They’re starting to get that. So no matter what they ask me, they’re asking me questions, ‘Are you opposed to whaling?’ No matter what they ask me I bring them back to the mercury contamination because they can’t argue that away. Ground zero for mercury poisoning on this planet was Minimata Japan in the 1950’s. Two hundred thousand people were affected by it. Thousands died. So when I talk about mercury I assume they’re going to go home and Google that in and try to figure that out for themselves. They’re starting to understand, ‘This guy is right. This is serious.’ So as long as I don’t talk about food culture issues or cruelty issues it’s winnable.
The two gentlemen that got the schools to stop the –
O’Barry: Mr. Yimashta and Mr. [?]. They’ll be national heroes someday. Today they’re ostracized from the community. People don’t talk to them.
They’re no longer a part of that group?
O’Barry: Mr. Yimashta was born there, both of them were. They had to leave town. They’re ostracized from the community. People don’t talk to them. You don’t do that in Japan. It’s called Japanese Kata. You never criticize the government. You think as a group. It’s a very different culture. You don’t do what they did and so they’re paying the price now. It’s terrible.
It’s an incredible movie and once you see it the message is loud and clear.
O’Barry: What you can do about it is go to that website and take action. We’ve made it easy for people to take action and I hope they will.
I think they will.
O’Barry: I think so, too.
(From latinoreview.com, by Edgar ‘El Toro’ Arce)
