The Cove

I do want to say that we try to do the story legally.

Shit.

I thought of all the possibilities of what could happen,

and it kept me up at night.

The story that Ric showed me at the beginning

was just the tip of the iceberg.

Here it is... the town of Taiji.

The little town with a really big secret.

It's funny driving into Taiji.

It's kind of like The Twilight Zone.

It's so bizarre

because if you didn't know what's going on over here,

you would think this is a town that loved dolphins and whales.

On our left here is the infamous Taiji Whale Museum.

And I really, really hate this place.

When we first got to Japan,

Ric O'Barry was incredibly frustrated.

He said, "Oh, you have to wear a mask.

Otherwise, they'll know that we're here."

And I thought, okay, all right.

There's the police.

I've got to hunch over and change my shape

so they think I'm just some old Japanese guy.

I thought, you know, what am I doing?

I went halfway across the world to end up in this car,

locked up with this paranoid guy.

Somebody's behind me.

I don't know who that is.

Yep. He's coming. He's coming.

Is he really?

Yeah. I've been doing this too long.

The mayor of this town actually gave me the key to the city.

I was welcome then.

Today they'd kill me if they could.

And I'm not exaggerating.

If these fishermen could catch me and kill me,

they would.

About three years ago,

my friend Jim Clark and I started this organization...

The Oceanic Preservation Society, OPS.

We've been diving for over 35 years,

and you could go back to the same dive spot year after year

and literally see the degradation of the oceans

before your very eyes.

There's major extinctions going on right now in our lifetime.

Jim had the idea

to try to do something about it, to stop this,

so I began documenting reefs around the world.

I went to a marine mammal conference down in San Diego.

There was 2,000 of the world's top marine mammal scientists,

and Ric O'Barry was supposed to be the keynote speaker,

and at the last minute,

the sponsor of the program pulled him from the ticket.

I thought, oh God, that's interesting.

Well, who's the sponsor?

They said, "Sea World."

A lot of marine mammal scientists get their money

from Hub Research Institute,

which is the nonprofit arm of Sea World.

They don't like me.

They don't like my message about captivity,

and they took me off the list.

They wouldn't let me talk about this dolphin slaughter in Taiji.

I said, "Dolphin slaughter? What's... What's that about?"

He says, "Well, I'm going next week.

You want to come?"

Now we're approaching the area that's most important.

That's a dolphin's worst nightmare right there.

Hundreds of thousands of dolphins have died there.

You'll see the signs... "Keep Out," "Danger."

There are fishermen walking around these hills with knives.

This is a national park.

The fishermen told me.

They said, "If the world finds out what goes on here,

we'll be shut down."

Can you imagine that?

They actually told us that.

We knew to get in there and film exactly what happens.

We need to know the truth.

When we got back to the hotel...

It's a big spa hotel,

people going by in robes,

and there's these three undercover cops talking to Ric.

No.

No.

- No. - No?

No.

In the background,

you could see these dolphin boats going by in the window,

and it was just... it was so surreal.

I couldn't... I wanted to laugh,

and I wanted to scream at the same time.

No. No.

Right. I know.

Yeah.

I don't enter. No, no.

Thank you so much, and...

You're welcome.

- See you again. - Okay. Bye-bye.

I never planned on being an activist.

One thing leads to another,

and now if there's a dolphin in trouble

anywhere in the world,

my phone will ring.

Ric is world famous for his work with dolphins.

The first time I connected with him in recent years

was on a trip down to Nicaragua.

There were two dolphins

in a swimming pool filled with their own excrement.

Ric somehow enlisted the military forces of Nicaragua.

The dolphins were put on a helicopter,

and then out to sea we go,

and the dolphins are released.

We're going to capture these dolphins out of the wild

and bring them into captivity.

There are people who will set them free.

In March of this year,

O'Barry was arrested three times in Florida

for trying to free some captive dolphins.

On Earth Day, he was arrested for the same thing

on the Island of Bimini.

How many times have you been arrested?

This year?

Swimmer, you're within a government-authorized test area.

You are holding up a government project.

Do you understand?

God damn it.

A dolphin in the right spot can make a million dollars a year.

There's a lot of money in it.

If you get in their way...

and I get in their way...

it can be very, very dangerous.

Jane Tipson, she was murdered.

She's the second colleague I've worked with that was murdered.

The other one was Jenny May.

We were trying to stop the traffic in Russian dolphins,

and it involved a hunger strike.

About the tenth day, I passed out,

and I went to a hospital there,

so Jenny became a target,

and they followed her down the beach

and strangled her with her own belt.

These dolphins are symbolic of a new day for the environment.

It's all about respect now, not exploitation.

I feel somewhat responsible

because it was the Flipper TV series

that created this multi-billion-dollar industry.

It created this desire to swim with them and kiss them

and hold them and hug them and love them to death,

and it created all these captures.

There were five female dolphins

who collectively played the part of Flipper.

I captured the five dolphins myself.

The entire crew turns to with battle station teamwork.

When the porpoise is sighted,

not a moment can be lost.

The men handle this creature with infinite care.

She seems to sense that she has come home,

that no harm will come to her now.

She is safe.

When I started training dolphins, there was no manual.

I would get the script,

and it says "Flipper goes over to the dock "and picks up the gun

and then swims down left to right."

I had to actually translate that into action somehow.

Thanks, Flipper.

Yeah. Thanks, Flipper.

The thing that really struck me

was that they're smarter than we think they are.

The house that you see on the Flipper set

where the family lives

was actually my house.

I lived there all year round for seven years.

And right in front of the house

there was a lake, salt water lake,

and that's where Flipper was at the end of the dock.

When Flipper came on television at Friday night at 7:30,

I would take my television set from the house

and go down the end of the dock

with a long extension cord,

and Cathy would watch herself on television,

and she could tell the difference between herself and Suzy,

who was another Flipper dolphin that was used.

I knew then they were self-aware,

and when you become conscious of this nonhuman intelligence,

you realize after a while they don't really belong in captivity.

But I didn't do anything about it.

One day, it all ended.

Like the props, they went back to the Miami Seaquarium.

When you just walk into this place and the music is playing,

the dolphin is jumping and smiling,

it's hard to see the problem.

But a dolphin's smile is nature's greatest deception.

It creates the illusion they're always happy.

The nerve center of any dolphinarium is the fish house.

And if you go to any one of these fish houses,

you'll see bottles of Maalox and Tagamet.

And they're used because dolphins get ulcers,

because they're all stressed out.

You have to see them in the wild