Tags
captive dolphins, dolphin shows, dolphin trade, Ric O'Barry, Sea Shepard, Sea World dolphins, Taiji, The Cove
A small tale with a happy ending having nothing to do with dolphins, but a cool and somewhat relevant story nonetheless. Recently on a late night bus ride home, the driver sped off from a stop, leaving a desperate, sprinting teenage boy furiously waving his arms in her wake. “Wait!” I yelled as she closed the door. But she pretended not to hear and quickly put her foot on the gas. As I watched him disappear into the black, I was overtaken with the urge to push the driver out of her seat and tell her that I was now taking over. “What the…?!” she’d scream. “Are you cr…?!” “First thing’s first,” I’d inform her, “we’ll be returning to the stop where you knowingly stranded that poor boy so he can get on this bus, tell you off for being so mean, and get to his destination.” We pulled over at the next stop several blocks down the road and, as I watched a passenger disembark through the back door, I noticed a flash of red fly past my window. There he was. The young running man. The determined, I-will-get-on-that-bus-if-it-fucking-kills-me young running man. As he walked up the bus stairs and passed me on his way to the back, I sank into my seat with a smile, reveling in the fact that all was right with the world, if only for a moment. With a fire in his belly that boy changed his fortune despite being a victim of apathy. He was one of the lucky ones. Those who don’t have the freedom or ability to protect themselves from human callousness are not so lucky.
The “people of the sea” deserve to be free. As a young girl, when anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I proudly replied, “A dolphin trainer!” This childhood dream was in part inspired by a trip to Sea World when I was an adolescent. I watched in awe as the trainer and dolphin seemed to be one. We all left the show smiling from ear to ear, much like the dolphins themselves, muttering to our family members in wonderment and joy. I longed to be a dolphin’s best friend and was convinced it was my destiny to frolic joyfully in the water and teach dolphins how to do amazing, applause-generating tricks at Sea World. The dolphins needed someone like me. Someone who would stroke their smooth bodies and tell them they are beautiful and talented.
Ric O’Barry, too, was attracted to the dolphin-training profession in his younger years. He worked with the dolphins that starred on the television show, “Flipper,” during which time he witnessed disturbing and consistent behaviors of captive dolphins. From these observations, O’Barry determined that they were suffering from what he now refers to as “dolphin depression syndrome.” In various interviews, O’Barry has repeatedly expressed that the captive dolphin’s body language is extremely revealing. In an August 2009 interview, O’Barry stated, “The real show begins when the show is over and everybody’s asked to leave. You see the dolphins go over to the side of the tank and they put their head up against the wall and just lie there like a log.”
Before hearing about the documentary The Cove, I, along with millions of others, was unaware of the covert operation, in Taiji, Japan, of the capturing, selling, and slaughtering of thousands of dolphins a year. As many who have seen the film know, The Cove is named after the inlet in which terrified and confused dolphins are forced into and trapped, and where they await their horrible fate. Employees from various aquaria and marine parks from around the world come and observe the dolphins, on the hunt for the “perfect” trainee. The one who seems the most intelligent, teachable, and well-behaved. The one who will be able to wow scads of spectators with her fluid and graceful moves. The one who will be able to generate millions of dollars to line the pockets of marine park higher-ups.
In Taiji, the dolphins and whales that get picked for marine parks are ripped away from their families and home to spend the rest of their now-shortened lives in small concrete pools. Most of the unsellable dolphins and whales are killed in unbelievably brutal ways. Their bodies are then sold for meat, most of which is unfit for human consumption because of high levels of mercury. For any dolphin or whale forced into the Cove, unimaginable suffering is a guarantee.
- –The Cove
Researchers have observed that dolphins can swim up to 60 miles a day. Dolphins and whales need to roam. It is their nature. It is a necessity. Cetaceans (whales, dolphins, & porpoises) are migratory mammals and they travel through the vast underworld in search of warmer waters, ample food sources, and suitable breeding grounds. There is endless proof that captive cetaceans (even those bred in captivity) do not respond well to confinement. Virtually nothing about the confines of a small cement pool resembles that of the ocean. They’re fed dead fish, at times having to be tube-fed because eating dead fish is as backwards to them as eating live fish is to us. Ultimately, these animals are denied any semblance of their natural habitat, resulting in alarmingly high rates of depression and early mortality.
—Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is an organization whose mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species. When I dream of being The Empathy Enforcer, this logo often appears in my mind.
I’ve lost hours of sleep from relentless mental pictures of dolphins dying from spears and sadness. I often lie awake fantasizing that a superpower benefactor offers to grant me a single superpower. Without hesitation I request to be incarnated with the ability to transfer feelings of pain and distress from captured to captor, from jailed to jailer, from sufferer to agent. I would free the perpetrators from their detachment, indifference, and greed, thereby granting them the conviction with which to free their victims and never capture or murder another being again. I would be the enforcer of empathy because, alas, some cannot attain it on their own.
Many have been deceived by the dolphin’s so-called smile. I know I once was. We think of dolphins as benevolent creatures, eager to swim with us and perform tricks for our amusement. This “smile” is revered around the globe. But, please, do not let this illusory perma-grin fool you. There is often tremendous sorrow behind it.
If you’d like to stay updated on the Cove and other cetacean rights-related info, “Like” the following Facebook pages: The Cove, Sea Shepard Conservation Society, Save the Blood Dolphins and/or follow on Twitter: @SeaShepard, @thecovenews. If you’re on neither, go to savejapandolphins.org, dolphinproject.org and seashepard.org.
Please don’t go to dolphin shows or participate in swim with captive dolphin programs. And please spread the word!