Remember “Flipper”? I used to watch the TV show when I was a kid, I loved it. I wanted to swim with dolphins. It ran from 1964-1967 and 5 female bottle-nosed dolphins played the lead role of Flipper. They were captured from the ocean, trained and destined to live their remaining days in captivity. Their trainer, Ric O’Barry, had no idea he was sparking a multi-billion dollar marine park industry with dolphins as the main attraction. He was enjoying his job and all the perks that went along with it so he kept the idea that this was just somehow wrong in the back of his mind. That was until the day Kathy (the main dolphin for Flipper) refused to allow him to ignore it any longer.
For the last 38 years Ric O’Barry has been an outspoken activist against marine parks with cetaceans forced to live in captivity. (Cetaceans are whales, dolphins and porpoises.) We watched his documentary film “The Cove”. Part of me wishes I hadn’t but the other part knows I had to. If we aren’t aware of the atrocities out there we can do nothing about them. “The Cove” is the black heart of the captive dolphin industry. The film tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate a hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The shocking discoveries they uncovered were only the tip of the iceberg.
I don’t want to give any of the movie away because you need to feel every bit of it but I think everyone needs to see this. At times I was moved to tears and once almost to vomit. It’s about more than dolphins, it’s about what governments do to their people. It’s about how we’ve destroyed our waterways and nothing is safe. You leave the film mourning the dolphins and fearing for your own life. You leave the film knowing the film makers are heroes with balls of steel. The fact this film was made at all is amazing.
Remember Flipper… watch for her… for her family. You can get it on DVD or if you’re on Netflix order it through them. Please.
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