›› TALKiNG PiCTURES
The porpoise-driven life ‘Cove’ hero Ric O’Barry is trying to put a cork in the bottlenose industry by Davi d Te mp l e ton
O’Barry’s message is simple: ‘Please don’t buy a ticket for a dolphin show.’
The Academy Award winning doc screens June 21 at the Rafael Film Center—Ric O’Barry and Louie Psihoyos will answer question; the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir is set to perform.
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t’s 7am in Japan, and dolphin-welfare activist Ric O’Barry has risen early to talk about the film The Cove. Directed by Louie Psihoyos, the 2009 Academy Award-winning documentary—which featured O’Barry prominently—sparked worldwide outrage with its devastating footage, captured using CIA-worthy stealth methods, of the secret dolphinslaughter industry in Japan. Since then, working through the Earth Island Institute (www.earthisland.org) and his own Dolphin Project (www.dolphinproject. org), O’Barry has been riding the wave of heightened awareness brought about by The Cove, using it to spread his message that dolphins are still being harmed and exploited in countless ways. On Tuesday, June 21, at 7pm, O’Barry and director Psihoyos will appear in San Rafael for a special encore screening of The Cove, at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center. A benefit for Earth Island Institute, the event will also feature a musical performance by the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir. The film is available free on the Internet, but for many, the San Rafael event will be the first opportunity to see the visually stunning, surprisingly exciting documentary on the big screen. “It’s the most powerful tool we have,” admits O’Barry. “Not just for what it says about the particular issues documented in The Cove, but it’s also been a powerful tool in my work on the dolphin-captivity issue.”
That’s the work O’Barry has been devoted to since the late 1960s, when he abandoned his career as a dolphin trainer and began telling people the truth about what he calls “the dolphin-capture industry.” As shown in The Cove, O’Barry was the original trainer of the five dolphins used in the hit television show Flipper.
After capturing the dolphins in the wild, and teaching them to perform the various Flipper tricks, O’Barry saw evidence that capturing and training dolphins leads to extreme depression in the animals. In the film, he describes watching the suicide of one of the Flipper dolphins, which ended up dying in his arms.
The brutal, unforgettable massacre scene from ‘The Cove.’
O’Barry’s work on ‘Flipper’ didn’t do the dolphins any favors, though it sure helped Bud and Sandy out of a few scrapes.
“The film has helped create a legion of activists around the world,” O’Barry points out, “so yes, it’s been extremely helpful. This movie does change people’s minds. I’ve seen it. I don’t know how many film festivals I’ve gone to around the world, and beginning with the very first screening, at the Sundance Film Festival—that was the first time I saw it myself—people literally jumped up out of their seats and said, ‘What can I do to help?’ And this film continues to have that kind of response. So yes, a movie can change the world, by changing people’s minds about important issues.”
It’s taken a while, but the film has finally become available in Japan, where O’Barry continues to go, putting pressure on the powers-that-be to stop the kinds of dolphin herding and organized killing—their meat is sold throughout Japan—chronicled in the movie. “Japan is the size of California,” O’Barry says, “and it has 127 million people. Most of them have not seen it. But I’ve done dozens of interviews in Japan, trying to get people to watch it on the Internet. It’s going to take a long time though, for 127 million people to see it, but I think, like Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, this movie is going to be around forever.” O’Barry has made sure, in the countless interviews and talks he’s given, to tell people about his efforts against the dolphin-captivity industry, an industry that includes marine parks with dolphin shows and films that use live dolphins in abusive ways. “It’s all based on supply and demand,” he says. “People will continue to capture dolphins and turn them into circus clowns as long as people are lining up to watch. If I’m wearing ivory, then I’m part of the reason the elephant is being hunted to extinction. So my message is simple— please don’t buy a ticket for a dolphin show. That’s the solution to the problem. It’s that simple. Every time I appear on a TV show or give an interview, that’s what I tell people, and apparently, these dolphin amusement parks are starting to feel that…Sea World recently laid off 350 people. People are getting the message, just like with the elephant issue, that if you are willingly buying tickets to dolphin shows, then dolphins are dying to amuse you.” ✹ Ride the wave with David at talkpix@earthlink.net.
It’s your movie, speak up at ›› pacificsun.com JUNE 17 - JUNE 23, 2011 PACIFIC SUN 23