“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” - Dr. MLKJ
Last week I heard about a new documentary called The Cove. It was awarded audience favorite at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and is currently nominated to win an Oscar or best documentary of the year. So, I decided to check it out.
I quickly learned that 23,000 dolphins are brutally slaughtered annually in a small cove in Taiji, Japan. Basically, these hunters use fear tactics to wrangle a vast amount of dolphins into nets along the coast. Then, organizations like Sea World and other “swim with the dolphins” programs come to buy the female bottlenose dolphins. A healthy female bottlenose is worth $150,000, so this is a huge source of revenue for this Japanese city. Here’s where things get real messed up. The next day, the dolphins that were not chosen are taken around the bay to a small cove where public access is forbidden. This is where the violent slaughter begins, a slaughter that will not end until every dolphin has been viciously harpooned to death. Each dolphin harvested this way is worth around $600 as the meat is sold in local markets and spread around the region.
You may be asking yourself “Why do we allow this to happen?” Well, this slaughter is kept pretty hush hush. This cove in Taiji is well hidden between two canyon walls surrounded by barbed wire, barricades, and patrolling guards. If an unauthorized person is caught near in the cove, they are immediately sent to jail for 30 days (a period in which torture is allowed) before the city if required to give them a trial. Once you’re arrested once, you can be banned from the city, which takes you out of the game. It’s a pretty effective method of maintaining this system.
Here lies the beauty of “The Cove.”
The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), a nonprofit in place to protect oceanic life, joined forces with Ric O’Barry, the man who caught and trained the original Flipper, to create a documentary that would expose this oceanic injustice. After observing the extreme difficulties to capture images from the cove, OPS had a revolutionary idea. To obtain the footage needed to end this slaughter, OPS formed an Ocean’s 11 type team by recruiting the world’s best free divers and ex-military reconnaissance operatives, along with several other key assets to the team. The Cove follows this team in their pursuit to show the world what happens every year along the coast of Taiji, Japan. And I must say, they do an inspiring job.
Some of you may believe dolphins and whales aren’t worth saving, so it doesn’t matter what happens to them. Below are two points I would like to illustrate.
- The dolphin meat obtained in Taiji is incredibly high in mercury, an element that poisons the human body. If this meat continues to spread around the nation, cases of mercury poisoning (which attacks the immune, nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive systems while leading to disastrous birth defects in newborns) are going to multiply vastly.
- If dolphin slaughter, whaling, and overfishing are allowed to continue, we are going to see a break down in the order of nature that will lead to a complete oceanic fallout. This will lead to the greatest food shortage any of us have ever seen.
We cannot allow this injustice to continue. Ending the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan is only the starting point. If we are unable to win this battle, how can we win the war? We have to combat the killing of whales and convince our world’s leaders to regulate overfishing. And yes, we cannot just “up and end” these injustices today. The economies of cities like Taiji rely on the sale and slaughter of dolphins and whales, so we will have to use our intellect and creativity to end this injustice while at the same time redesigning these coastal economies.
Here is my challenge to you.
- Visit The Cove’s Website and watch the film. Educating ourselves if the first step.
- Sign the Online Petition to end the slaughter of our whales and dolphins. We have to raise our voices to let world leaders know we want this injustice to end. Our next goal is to reach 100,000 signatures to pass along.
- Join us next Wednesday night, March 3, at Lipscomb University for a screening of The Cove. The event will begin at 9pm in Swang 108 and will be co-hosted by LU’s IJM Campus Chapter, Phi Sigma, and the AMP Initiative.
We have the power to save these majestic creatures. What are you going to do about it?
