by Luanne Paul King

The Cove

In the 1950s, Dr. John C. Lilly was doing research on dolphins in the Virgin Islands. He recorded the fast-paced sounds of dolphins communicating. When he slowed down the tape he realized the dolphins’ sounds were not random; they had a definite language, not just clicks and whistles. He resolved to learn their language and to teach them his. Thus, a form of interspecies communication was initiated.

Lilly was aware of Aristotle’s pertinent observations about dolphins. In The History of Animals, Aristotle wrote that dolphins bear their young alive, suckle them, breathe air, and communicate by underwater sounds. “The voice of the dolphin in air is like that of the human in that they can pronounce vowels and combinations of vowels, but have difficulties with the consonants,” he wrote.

For centuries biologists dismissed Aristotle’s statement as mythology, especially the idea of “the voice of the dolphin in air.” However, by 1955, people who had been close to dolphins in shallow water told stories of dolphins calling out to young boys, giving them rides, pulling them through the water, and even dying from grief when a friendly boy left.

Flash forward to Flipper, the hit TV series in the 1960s. Richard O’Barry captured and trained five dolphins to play the adorable Flipper. However, when one of the dolphins committed suicide by closing her blowhole, O’Barry quit the show and became an advocate on behalf of dolphins around the world.

O’Barry met Louis Psihoyos, a National Geographic photographer, and the two joined forces to create The Cove — filming dolphins in a cove near Taiji, Wakayama, Japan. The crew used special microphones and high-definition cameras ingeniously disguised as rocks. They had to dive at night and hide their equipment from men guarding a cove where dolphins were confined before being slaughtered for their meat. Their film is about the cruel killing of thousands of dolphins — over 20,000 annually!

The film reveals many other issues: mercury-saturated dolphin meat was sold in markets; dolphin meat was labeled whale meat because it could be sold at a higher price; and dolphin meat was even served in Japanese schools.

Dolphins are peace-loving creatures with brains larger than humans’. They use four channels of communication and never forget any human beings once they have scanned them. As a scuba diver, I appreciate dolphins’ playfulness, civility and unfailing altruism. I once saw two dolphins lifting a sick dolphin up to the water’s surface so he could breathe. They held him aloft for hours. We must save the dolphins from slaughter and reduce the fossil fuel pollution that causes mercury to accumulate in their blood — and ours!

The Cove stars Ric O’Barry and was directed by Louis Psihoyos. Fisher Stevens and Paula DuPre Pesman produced the film. Mark Monroe wrote the script. The Cove won the 2009 Academy Award for best documentary.

91 minutes. Available on DVD.