'the cove'

✰ we just watched 'the cove', a heartbreaking but magnificent documentary, which has won a heap of awards including a sundance and is nominated for an oscar! ...a must watch!!!

the guy who made the doco, ric o'barry, who starred in and trained 'flipper' back in the 70's, was so affected by his experience working with dolphins, that he's been on a mission ever since to free them from captivity and stop the slaughtering of dolphins for meat in japan. in a fantastic 'mission impossible style' operation, he and his team sneak down to the killing site, in the middle of the night through private property and set up a small fortune worth of high-tech hidden cameras and underwater sound recorders. the footage uncovers the horrors, the lies and the corruption of the japanese whaling trade and the government officials who are both supporting and covering it up. the doco also gives you an insight into the amazing intelligence of dolphins and at the end of the doco you feel like just marching down to that japanese port, jumping in to set the poor things free and then killing (or at least cursing, spitting and wishing bad karma on) all the horrible fishermen that are slaughtering them.

i went swimming with dolphins last year in mexico. i wish i'd never done it and i'll never do it again. the small concrete swimming pool they lived in was filthy and old and the poor creatures were all scratched up and bleeding from gashes on their bills and sides. i asked the trainer what happened to them and he said they do it to themselves. there was one female and 2 males and i asked if they ever had babies and he said they were never interested in mating. that's how depressed they were. you could feel it by being near them.

hopefully this documentary will put a stop to dolphin trading as well... they shouldn't be in swimming pools! they should be out in the ocean, surfing waves and being free....

♡