Star wants to stop dolphin hunt

2009-09-03 20:13

Yuri Kageyama

Taiji - All Ric O'Barry wants is to stop the killing, so the dolphin trainer for the 1960s Flipper TV series figured the natural place to start was in this seaside Japanese town.

The American activist, star of an award-winning documentary that depicts the dolphin slaughter here, got a predictably unwelcome reception when he showed up for the start of the annual hunt this week.

Standing out in this village of 3 500 people, the burly O'Barry talked to fishermen, Japanese reporters, police who questioned him, anyone who would listen, determined to deliver the message that the dolphins had to be saved.

"We have to keep Taiji in the news," O'Barry said, bringing his own camera crew and a few foreign reporters on an impromptu tour on a chartered bus. "There is an international tsunami of attention."

His movie, The Cove, directed by National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos, was released in the United States a month ago but has yet to come out in Japan.

The film, which won this year's audience award at the Sundance Film Festival, juxtaposes stunning underwater shots of gliding dolphins with others from the hunt.

Its hero is O'Barry, still a weathered outdoorsman at 69, who, after training dolphins for the Flipper, had a change of heart in 1970. He has devoted his recent years to helping return dolphins in captivity to the wild and to stopping the killing at Taiji.

Animals

Scenes in the film, some which were shot clandestinely, show fishermen banging on metal poles stuck in the water to create a wall of sound that scares the dolphins - which have supersensitive sonar - and sends them fleeing into a cove.

There, the fishermen sometimes pick a few to be sold for aquarium shows, for as much as $150 000. They kill the others, spearing the writhing animals repeatedly until the water turns red.

The meat from one dolphin fetches about $500 and is sold at supermarkets across Japan, where dolphin and whale meat are considered delicacies.

"I've been working with dolphins for most of my life. I watched them give birth. I've nursed them back to health," said O'Barry.

"When I see what happens in this cove in Taiji, I want to do something about it."

Greenpeace and other groups have tried to stop the hunt for years.

Activists hope The Cove, which tells the story like a gripping detective movie, will bring the issue home to more people internationally - and eventually in Japan.

- SAPA