The Cove directed by Louie Psihoyos, written by Mark Monroe, documents the abusive practice of collaring and capturing dolphins in an area off the coast of Japan, to be sold to seaquariums or other markets. Cetaceans are among the world's most intelligent animals, and have brains of complexity similar to humans; part of their brains manages sonar, which is like a biological Internet. The animals can sleep with half of their brain at a time.
To me, it's unthinkable that human beings would eat animals of almost human intelligence, but human civilization has long whaled, eaten whale meat and used whale oil. And sometimes dolphins are substituted for whales, ridden with mercury poison.
And then we capture and breed them for entertainment. Remember Flipper from the 1950s? Or SeaQuestDSV in the 1990s, with a dolphin in a tank on a submarime, befriending a teenager aboard. Remember all the shows in Florida? All this is the subject matter for the new documentary from LionsGate and Roadside Attractions, and Participant Media, “The Cove”, about a secret cove, hidden away by nets and accessible through tunnels, near Taijii, Japan, where the police and the dolphin industry conspire to arrest and drive away journalists trying to expose a shameful tragedy.
The film contains some graphic footage of dolphins bleeding to death, and explains that the animals, taken from their social environment, commit suicide by deciding not to breathe.
Besides the chimpanzee, the dolphin and particularly the orca or killer whale is probably the most intelligent mammal. Dolphins recognize themselves in the mirror and save humans from sharks.
The film is shot on location in a seedy town in Japan, and contains a lot of raw video footage. It is directed by Louie Psihoyos and written by Mark Monroe.