A Date With Dolphins, And Death, In 'The Cove'

[daniel green]

A few years ago, he gained the ear of photographer-filmmaker Louie Psihoyos and took him to the Japanese town of Taiji. The place looks like it loves dolphins — there are dolphin-shaped buses, dolphin billboards, dolphin balloons. But O'Barry points past all that to what's happening nearby in the water: the fishermen using the dolphin's sensitive sonar to trap them in the cove that gives Psihoyos' movie its title. In that secluded inlet, a few dolphins will be isolated for sale to marinas at more than $150,000 each. The rest, though, will never come back out. "That's a dolphin's worst nightmare," O'Barry says, pointing to the cove from a hillside highway, his face concealed behind a surgical mask for fear the locals — who resent his activism — will recognize him.
"Hundreds of thousands of dolphins have died there. ... We have to get in there and film exactly what happens."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111330391

I heard this story on NPR the other day--the audio is at the link. Just so horribly sad and disgusting and maddering.