Page 40 - 2011 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - March 2011

Who killed Flipper? Who killed Flipper? profit every 12 months. That's like filling this room with cash -- hundred-dollar bills -- every 12 months. Int: You had this sort of road-to- The filmmakers behind "The Damascus moment at some point in your life Cove" discuss the shocking where you came to a personal realization that Sundance documentary that keeping dolphins in captivity was wrong. And that obviously changed your life completely. may forever change how we R.O.: Yes. It's been a long, strange trip feel about dolphins in since I walked away from that industry. I could have stayed with it if I'd wanted to, and been captivity making a lot of money. I could still do that, if I wanted to, you know, have my own politically correct dolphin "Flipper" sea school thing PARK CITY, Utah -- Unless you count somewhere in the Bahamas. But I wouldn't be the remnant of an ancient sea today known as able to sleep at night. Instead I go to Taiji, with the Great Salt Lake, Ric O'Barry and Louie Louie, where I can't sleep at night. Psihoyos are more than a thousand miles from Int: Louie, how did you get involved the nearest ocean. But one-time dolphin trainer questions about how badly we have befouled with this project in the first place? O'Barry and former National Geographic the 70 percent of our planet that's covered with Louie Psihoyos: I went to a marine photographer Psihoyos are here in the Utah water, and about why we have treated the mammal conference down in San Diego in mountains with a devastating and highly species closest to us in intelligence with such 2000. The world's top marine mammal engaging documentary called "The Cove," cruelty and contempt. scientists were there. A lot of dry speeches, you which has played to standing ovations at Although international environmental know, all scientific speeches, and Ric was Sundance and is likely to change what you think nonprofits, the International Whaling supposed to be the keynote speaker on a video about humanity's relationship to the oceans. As Commission and the Japanese government have night. I was really looking forward to hearing O'Barry puts it, after you see "The Cove" you ignored or covered up the Taiji massacre and its him talk because it was something I could relate may never buy a ticket to a captive dolphin consequences, Psihoyos and O'Barry are to; [I watched] "Flipper" as a child and this is performance at an aquarium again. confident that their film can lead to a permanent the guy that trained it. And at the last minute he Once the trainer of TV's Flipper -- shift in public opinion. (Dolphin meat is already was banned from talking and I gave Ric a call actually played by two different female off the menu in Japanese public schools, and the and asked why, and he said he was banned from bottlenose dolphins -- O'Barry has become the fisheries minister was forced to resign.) As talking because of his feelings about captivity biggest nemesis of the "dolphinarium" business President Obama reminded us this week, the and he was going to talk about this dolphin and the worldwide trade in captive dolphins, market remains an effective mechanism for slaughter in Taiji and I said, "Dolphin working legally or illegally to free them change; if you end the demand for dolphin meat slaughter?" I couldn't imagine that there was, in wherever he can. His conversion from trainer to and captive dolphin shows, you end the trade in this day and age, people were slaughtering activist is discussed in the film -- and it's an living and dead dolphins. I met O'Barry and dolphins. So I gave him a call and said, "So electric moment -- but director Psihoyos' central Psihoyos at their condo in Park City a day after who's doing something about it? What's going subject is the exciting and unlikely "Ocean's the premiere of "The Cove." on?" And he said, "Well, I'm going next week. Eleven"-style raid he and O'Barry lead into a "The Cove" is about the issue of dolphin Do you want to come?" secluded coastal cove in Taiji, Japan, that holds captivity first and foremost. But secondarily it's I'd never actually picked up a video a terrible secret. Hundreds of dolphins are a movie about you and the journey that you've camera before and worked it as a professional. corralled by local fishermen and herded into the gone on. So I got a three-day crash course in training and cove, where the finest physical specimens are Ric O'Barry: I spent the last 40 years went out there with Ric. Of course, after years at collected and sold to trainers at prices up to working on that obscure issue and it's very National Geographic I'm fairly good with a still $150,000 each or more. What happens to the difficult because you have to define the problem camera, but it's a little bit different with a movie others? first. There doesn't appear to be a problem with camera. You're working in multiple dimensions As O'Barry had known for years, the dolphins in captivity. You see dolphins in a of time and sound. But, yeah, it was probably dolphins not picked for export were being beautiful blue pool and the music's playing, the the worst conditions I can imagine to try to start slaughtered by the thousands, butchered and sun's out, and you're with your family. What's a film. I'd just met Stephen Spielberg a few sold for meat in Japanese markets (often falsely wrong with this picture? Unless you're hitting months before that -- I was actually on a boat labeled as another kind of seafood). From his the dolphin with a baseball bat, you can't see the and our kids were doing sleepovers on this perspective, this was a senseless massacre problem. The movie changes all of that. vacation -- and he said, "What do you do?" and perpetrated against a highly intelligent, self- Int: What you're talking about is the fact I said, "Well, I make films. I'm starting to aware species. It was also a potential crime that you guys discovered this hidden cove in become a filmmaker." And he says, "Let me tell against humanity. As predators at the top of the Japan [where] thousands of dolphins every year you something: Never make a movie on boats or food chain, dolphins are the unhappy recipients are slaughtered for meat, right? with animals." And I was about to start the of the worst heavy-metal pollution in the R.O.: Twenty-three thousand a year in Oceanic Preservation Society and I would be world's oceans. Dolphin meat that was being different parts of Japan, but we’re focusing on spending a lot of time on boats and routinely fed to Japanese schoolchildren, for this one body of water. Before Louie showed photographing large, uncooperative animals. instance, tested many times -- sometimes up, I thought we would be working on this And now I'm going to this cove where people hundreds of times -- above the legal limit for forever and ever ... But now, because of "The want to kill you. It's like this natural fortress; it's mercury. Cove," I actually see the light at the end of the nearly impossible to get in there and then you Using clandestine equipment, some of it tunnel, and that light is not an oncoming train. have the police on your tail. Everything was planted by free-divers in a midnight raid, Int: That's an amazing thing. And one of working against us. Psihoyos captures on film what happens in that the things that is also really remarkable about Int: There's an element of secret agent Taiji cove. I saw the film at a pre-Sundance this film is that you talk about your feelings of mission, or as I think you put it in the film, screening for New York film critics -- pretty personal responsibility for the worldwide issue "Ocean's Eleven" about this movie, right? You much the most jaded audience you could of dolphins in captivity because of your role in kind of had to put together a team of people who imagine -- and we sat and watched that footage the TV show "Flipper." were going to shoot clandestinely under in dead, haunted silence. Beautifully R.O.: Yeah, well, "Flipper" helped extremely difficult conditions in the middle of photographed and highly entertaining as it is, create this multibillion-dollar industry. I mean, the night. "The Cove" is also one of the most wrenching in the United States alone, they make $2 billion movies you'll ever see. It raises troubling Continued on Page 42