(2009) In September each year in Taiji, Japan, dolphins and porpoises are herded for capture from the sea. Trainers are willing to pay $150,000 for young, female, bottle-nose dolphins to be taken away to perform in the world's many aquatic showcases. But most of the 23,000 others not selected are killed for meat.

The largely toothless International Whaling Commission (IWC) attempts to protect large cetaceans but not their smaller cousins, thus the task is left to "the passion of individuals."

International savior of dolphins, Ric O'Barry of Earth Island Institute became famous in the 1960s for training the five dolphins used in the television series Flipper and inspiring the huge popularity of dolphins performing in water arenas for the public. Since then as a personal penance he's dedicated his life to freeing these highly-intelligent, self-aware (like humans), sound-sensitive, small cetaceans from captivity, often getting arrested in the act. The dolphin "smile," he says, only presents the illusion that these creatures are always happy.

Attempting to succeed where many other activists had failed, teaming up with executive producer Jim Clark and filmmaker Louie Psihoyos of the Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), enlisting the services of deep-sea divers Mandy-Rae Cruikshank and Kirk Krack, associate producer and sailing master Charles Hambleton, plus cameramen Joe Chisholm and Simon Hutchins, O'Barry determines that "the way to stop it is to expose it."

However, finding a way to photograph the nasty business concealed inside the secret cove is a tricky affair, requiring extensive preparation, special equipment, reconnaissance, and stealth as suspicious Japanese authorities are closely watching them. On their dramatic and dangerous secret-OPS mission, the team employs high-def cameras concealed in fake rocks, thermal cameras for photographing at night, hydrophones, a drone and a balloon for aerial shots.

Horror amid beauty, the images and sounds captured within the enchanting landscape of the cove depict fishermen harpooning the dolphins as they grotesquely thrash about in the lagoon turning crimson with their blood.

Because of a cover-up by the government and media, most Japanese are unaware that some of the whale meat they purchase is actually dolphin or porpoise flesh, which has a high concentration of mercury. As predators at the top of the food chain, cetaceans have become "swimming toxic dump sites," threatening Japanese mothers, as happened in the 1950s in Minamata, with mercury poisoning, which is especially harmful to a fetus.

Mark Monroe wrote the script; among those interviewed are Captain Paul Watson (also featured in Sharkwater) and Roger Payne, PhD, of the Save the Whales movement.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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