The Academy Award-winning documentary, The Cove (2009) captures viewers’ attention immediately with its opening shots in Taiji, Japan, where its unlikely hero, Ric O’Barry explains, “I do want to say that we tried to do the story legally,” but he then exclaims, “Shit,” as he sees city police nearby and introduces the tale of espionage at the center of the film: “Here it is,” Ric tells the viewer, “the town of Taiji, the little town with a really big secret,” pointing to a seemingly idyllic village beside the sea where dolphins are memorialized in the Taiji Whale Museum, and exalted by both locals and tourists in pleasure boats shaped like smiling dolphins. But, as O’Barry reveals, “Hundreds of thousands of dolphins have died there,” and it is his mission to fight for the dolphins’ rights and reveal the senseless slaughter to the world.
The Cove grapples with issues surrounding fishing for what New York Times seafood writer, Paul Greenberg, calls our “last wild food” in his Four Fish. Most importantly, The Cove affects the changes it proposes. The Cove not only unmasks the slaughter of dolphins that leaders in Taiji work hard to hide; it also provides a call to action that is both heard and followed, successfully slowing the carnage in the cove. In The Cove, O’Barry defines dolphins as both sentient and self-aware, offering these characteristics of persons as reasons for ensuring their safety and freedom.
The Covedemonstrates dolphins’ connections with humans first through Ric O’Barry’s recollections of interactions with the dolphins he captured and trained for the television series, Flipper(1964-1968). O’Barry explains, “When they are captured and put in a concrete tank surrounded by screaming people, the noise causes stress.” The sound of the filtration system was found to kill dolphins and had to be modified. O’Barry’s commentary demonstrates both their sentience—ability both to feel pleasure and pain—and their self-awareness—ability to recognize themselves on television, arguing effectively that dolphins should be preserved because destroying them means destroying persons of equal value to humans. The Cove also valorizes dolphin’s intelligence as a connection to humans through information provided by Dr. John Potter, who measures intelligence in dolphins. According to the film, then, dolphins have worth, so they deserve to live. They also deserve the freedom all persons of equal worth deserve.
The film establishes the worth of dolphins but also assumes, because they have historically been viewed as sentient creatures, that viewers will immediately call for action, once the slaughter at Taiji Cove is revealed. The film asserts both logical and emotional reasons why the dolphins should be saved. For example, the film provides practical reasons why humans should avoid dolphin meat, if they value their health, explaining that dolphin meat has toxic levels of mercury.
The slaughter they capture on film becomes the climax of this powerful documentary, serving as the strongest animal rights argument in the film. Once they herd in the dolphins, fishermen begin the slaughter, stabbing dolphins repeatedly with harpoons. The water turns red with blood. Dolphin screams fill the soundtrack. The harpooning continues until all the dolphins are dead. The water is ruby red, but dolphins caught in nets are pierced again and again. They try to escape but are caught in this cove fortress. Carcasses are ripped on board the boats, but fishermen smoke nonchalantly, even diving into the bloody water in search of more bodies. The dolphins are dragged like harpooned whales. These images contrast with majestic shots of dolphins swimming freely in the sea.
The footage of the slaughter becomes O’Barry’s proof of dolphins’ sentience. Their suffering is clear on the video screen he shows a town spokesman and the members of the International Whaling Commission. And these shocking images get results. Small countries paid off by the Japanese leave the IWC, and dolphin meat is no longer allowed in school lunches, for example. By building an argument that first demonstrates dolphins’ equality because they, like humans, are both sentient and self-aware, The Cove draws on animal rights arguments. It also effectively takes that argument one-step further. Because dolphins are sentient and self-aware, their slaughter must end.
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