The Cove Wins the Oscar!

All Eyes Turn To Japan
An Important Message from Ric O'Barry and the Save Japan Dolphins Campaign:

If you watched the Oscars, you saw me, Producer Fisher Stevens, and Director Louie Psihoyos accept the Best Documentary awarded by the Academy. Wow, what an incredible moment!

Without your support, this would never have happened. So, even though I wasn't able to thank you all at the podium, I thank you all now.

But this has never been about winning awards. Our job is to end the slaughter and stop the poisoning. And now our work in Japan begins anew. We must focus like a laser on getting The Cove and our message to the Japanese people.

But there are threats on the horizon. Officials in Japan are threatening repercussions against university and community groups that dare to show The Cove. Dolphin-killing fishermen's unions are threatening lawsuits against theaters that show the film. There are even some signs that I could face arrest in Japan, even though I've broken no laws whatsoever.

We wont give in to this pressure. Instead, I am making plans to spend months in Japan with our Save Japan Dolphins Team. I want to be wherever we can find an audience. Our message will particularly resonate with young people, to whom we need to reach out with the dangers of mercury-contaminated dolphin meat and the slaughter of dolphins they love as much as we do.

If you can help me, it will make a world of difference.

DONATE NOW:

The Oscar telecast is the most-watched TV show in Japan! And they, and more than a billion other viewers, saw The Cove movie win!

But now I also need your help in sending a clear message to Japan's Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, that the sale of mercury-laden dolphin meat must end now: Sign and send the petition at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/ban-the-sale-of-dolphin-meat

We need help in promoting the Japanese version of The Cove in the next weeks before The Cove opens at Japanese theaters. We need help for travel, video promotion, website outreach, legal defense, and screening The Cove outside of theaters in libraries, universities, and town halls in Japan.

Japan has 126 million people; only 600 have seen The Cove so far. Those who saw it were shocked and dismayed that this slaughter was happening in their country. We need to enlist their help and the help of millions of their fellow citizens to stop the Japanese government from issuing 23,000 permits annually to slaughter dolphins. We need to seize on the momentum now to pursue an end to the slaughter, once and for all!

Will you help us get the truth out?

DONATE NOW:

Thank you for your generous support of our efforts!


Ric O'Barry
Campaign Director
Save Japan Dolphins Campaign

P.S. The Save Japan Dolphins Campaign and Earth Island Institute do not get any funds from The Cove movie sales. (Those funds go to the OPS, which made the film, and their investors to reimburse them for their considerable costs in making The Cove.)

P.P.S. If you think there is any possibility that you might be able to come over to Taiji on September 1st to celebrate the beauty of Taiji and let them know that the killing of dolphins shouldn't start again, please note that on the comment field on the donation form.


DONATE NOW:

Save Japan Dolphins Coalition: Earth Island Institute, Animal Welfare Institute, Elsa Nature Conservancy of Japan, In Defense of Animals,
Campaign Whale of the UK, and OceanCare of Switzerland
www.SaveJapanDolphins.org

Time for a Federal Investigation into SeaWorld's Negligence in Death of Trainer

Posted by David Phillips
Executive Director
Earth Island Institute

Ric O’Barry
Campaign Director
Save Japan Dolphins

Dear Friends,

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Dawn Brancheau, who by all accounts was a loving and talented caretaker for Tilikum (Tilly), the killer whale who took her life at SeaWorld Orlando just days ago.

Along with sadness of this tragic event we can’t help feeling anger toward those who insist upon exhibiting these wild creatures in habitats that can drive them to violence. Dependent on sonar/sound to navigate their vast ocean homes, dolphins and whales are in constant state of distress living in cramped pools, bombarded by noise, stressed by food deprivation and forced to perform.

We understand the love these trainers must feel for the orcas they train, but make no mistake - this wasn’t just a terrible accident, it was a calculated risk on the part of a billion dollar captive dolphin and whale industry. Facts suggest that SeaWorld was well aware of Tilicum’s deadly attacks on trainers.

Captivity is Cruel; Don't Go To A Show

Sign on the attached petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/stop-dolphin-captivity


SeaWorld allowed public and trainer contact with an orca that was a known risk, and after 3 deaths they’re suggesting that it actually continue. SeaWorld has been admonished in the past by an official with the US National Marine Fisheries Service for failure to take prudent and precautionary steps with Tilicum’s health and welfare.

The latest claims that Tilicum was distracted by the trainer’s ponytail are absurd and force us to infer that SeaWorld is guilty of negligence and that it is now trying to cover up repeated deadly orca attacks by resorting to outrageous and disingenuous claims.

We believe this situation warrants the immediate initiation of a federal investigation into SeaWorld’s possible negligence and violations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Further information suggests that SeaWorld has covered up additional acts of orca attacks in order to protect its multi-million dollar investment in these creatures and the millions more they make on the backs of their performances.

Finally, we find their claims about conservation and education shallow. If these shows are meant to encourage people to help save these precious creatures then why aren’t they doing more to end the brutal slaughter of thousands and thousands of dolphins and whales off the coast of Japan, Norway and the Southern Seas. Instead, they turn a blind eye, when they could dedicate significant resources to stopping it.

Overall, we believe the conduct of SeaWorld in this matter is reprehensible. SeaWorld’s actions are a gross threat to dolphins, whales, and people and should not be allowed to stand.

These animals belong in the wild.

We support efforts to stop the dolphin slaughter and capture in Japan as well as to educate the public about these magnificent mammals. In the past they led the effort to rescue, rehab and release the killer whale Keiko, made famous in the movie “Free Willy.” Keiko went from languishing in small pool in Mexico City to swimming with wild whales in his native waters in Iceland. He ended up swimming to Norway and living there in a bay with some human care until he died.

After many years training dolphins (including, "Hugo" the very first killer whale in captivity in the Eastern USA), Ric O’Barry came to understand the cruelty that these mammals endure for our entertainment. After the loss of the dolphin “Cathy”, one of the famous Flipper dolphins, O’Barry became an advocate of marine wildlife, working to ensure the safety of all dolphins including killer whales. The Oscar nominated documentary “The Cove” shows, through O’Barry’s eyes, the capture of these graceful creatures under terrible conditions, as well as the wholesale slaughter of dolphins in Japan.

Captivity is Cruel; Don't Go To A Show

Sign on the attached petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/stop-dolphin-captivity


Thanks for your help!

Ric O'Barry
David Phillips
Save Japan Dolphins
Earth Island Institute

Cove Movie Dolphins Die in Turkey

By Susan Millward, Executive Director
Animal Welfare Institute

The Save Japan Dolphins Coalition is outraged by the deaths of four dolphins at the Sealanya Dolphin Park in Turkey. The dolphins were captured from the wild in Taiji, Japan in 2008 as part of a notorious annual dolphin drive hunt.

"These dolphins were captured in Taiji in the killing cove as depicted in the documentary The Cove, where they were ripped from their families," stated Ric O'Barry, Campaign Director for Save Japan Dolphins. "Their families were then butchered for meat -- the sale of the live dolphins subsidizes the killing for the fishermen. Under these conditions of extreme stress, the deaths of these dolphins in Turkey's Sealanya Dolphin Park were inevitable. Dolphins die an early death in aquarium tanks due to boredom, disease, and stress."

Their short lives in captivity were a stark contrast to their lives in the wild before they were unlucky enough to stray into the path of Taiji dolphin killers. After being spotted with their podmates, they were chased with boats and driven to shore by the fishermen using noise. In panic they were herded into a shallow bay, cut off from the ocean and their former life. These four were then handpicked for a life in captivity in far off Turkey, while their podmates were horrifically butchered for meat, fertilizer or pet food. The Taiji dolphin hunts are the cruel reality of modern day aquariums and “swim-with-dolphins” tourist programs that source from the wild. The money paid by Sealanya Dolphin park for the dolphins is a direct incentive for the Japanese fishermen to continue the hunts that result in the deaths of thousands of additional dolphins a year.

The Taiji dolphin hunts are the subject of an Oscar-nominated film The Cove which features our Coalition’s campaign director Ric O'Barry, who has spent almost half his life trying to shut down the hunts. The hunts run from September through March and in all around 1000 dolphins are killed or captured in the hunts every year. Later this year The Cove, which received a slew of audience awards during its US run, will open across Japan, and, for the first time, the Japanese public will be exposed to the truth that lies on their shores. A media blackout has prevented the story from reaching the Japanese people, who know little about the dolphin killing operation.

Susan Millward, Executive Director of the Washington DC-based Animal Welfare Institute, stated: "The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) refuses to step in and monitor their members and colleagues: The Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums (JAZA) who are directly involved in the Taiji dolphin captures. The Taiji Whale Museum is one of several dolphin brokers in Taiji and a member of JAZA. So long as the aquarium industry has paying customers who want to see dolphins, they will provide a market for wild-caught Taiji dolphins, and the hunts will continue."

Eight other Taiji dolphins who were captured with those who died remain at the Sealanya Dolphin Park.

The Save Japan Dolphins Coalition was formed in November 2006 to combat the killing and capture of dolphins and other small whales in Japanese waters.

Music Industry supports Save Japan Dolphins

Already nominated for an Oscar, the environmental thriller THE COVE brings to light the machinations of the Japanese dolphin hunters. More than 1,000 dolphins are brutally killed each year in the fishing village of Taiji. In protest of this crime against marine mammals, Ocean Care and the Save Japan Dolphins Coalition have also received support from the music industry.

"I will never be able to rid my mind of those horrific pictures," recalls musician and composer Rick Laine. "It was back in 1993 when I first saw films on how dolphins are butchered in
Japan and I was appalled." The native Englishman then worked his way through the negative emotions experienced through that event by writing the song "Cruel Heart."

Together with the Swiss music producer Hape Schuwey, Laine revised the catchy song and donated it to Ocean Care for its campaign against dolphin drives. The Swiss organization then produced a video clip to the song that includes some exclusive film material of wild dolphins which it received as a donation from the renowned American video artist, Diana Thater.

Written and composed by Rick Laine, featuring M.G. Grace, "Cruel Heart" can be procured as a song and ring tone over iTunes. The proceeds flow completely into the campaign against the Japanese dolphin drive.

For further information:

Photo CD Cover - Cruel Heart

Download Cruel Heart on iTunes.

Watch video clip on YouTube.

"The Cove" Goes to the Oscars

By Ric O’Barry
Campaign Director
Save Japan Dolphins Coalition

Great news! The award-winning documentary “The Cove” is now in the official running for an Oscar for Best Documentary, along with four other documentaries. The next month will see unprecedented publicity for “The Cove” and our Campaign.

While an Oscar nomination is a tremendous testament to the skill and art of the filmmakers of “The Cove,” it also sheds a welcome light on the actions of the government of Japan in trying to cover up the dolphin slaughter and the poisoning of Japanese people by mercury-laced dolphin meat.

Big thanks go to all “The Cove” filmmaking Team, especially to Director Louie Psihoyos, Executive Producer Jim Clark, Producer Fisher Stevens, and all the team at the Oceanic Preservation Society.

They took big risks and worked hard to make a brave film, and we at Save Japan Dolphins honor them for their well-earned awards including this nomination!

The March 7^th broadcast of the Oscar presentations will reach nearly a billion people around the world! People will see “The Cove,” and will be hearing about “The Cove” over the next month.

Our Save Japan Dolphins Team will be working with the media around the world to highlight our ongoing Campaign to educate the Japanese people and end the slaughter of dolphins, once and for all.

I also want to thank all of you who have volunteered your time and given us donations – your support has meant a lot to all our Save Japan Dolphins Coalition Team and me. Without your support, “The Cove” movie would never have been made. Without your support, all the film festivals and honors gleaned by “The Cove” would never have happened. And without your support, the annual slaughter of the dolphins would still be a big secret.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

It is time now for a big push for our cause, especially in Japan, where the lies and blackouts by the Japan Fisheries Agency and the dolphin killers can at last be pierced.

And we must ensure that “The Cove” shows throughout Japan all spring and summer, working to stop the next killing season throughout 2010.

Thanks for your help and support! If you would like to donate to our efforts to get the word out and keep the pressure on in Japan, please

Click Here to Donate

We are also asking you and your friends and neighbors to sign our petition to end the killing of dolphins. We are seeking 1 million signatures, and now have more that 659,000 online. Go to:

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/252

Thanks for all your efforts for the dolphins! I know we can end the slaughter, if we work together and get the people of Japan to see “The Cove”.

--

Ric O’Barry

Japanese Scientist Reveals Study Showing That Taiji Residents have 10 Times Higher Mercury Levels Than Average Japanese Citizens

BREAKING NEWS:
Japanese Scientist Reveals Study Showing That Taiji Residents have 10 Times Higher Mercury Levels Than Average Japanese Citizens.

University of Hokkaido Professor Tetsuya Endo expresses alarm at the high levels of contamination among residents of Taiji, site of the killing of dolphins featured in “The Cove”. Dr. Endo is calling for “efforts to curb consumption of whale meat which is highly contaminated with mercury.”

Message From Ric O’Barry
Campaign Director
Save Japan Dolphins

The dirty secret of the largest slaughter of dolphins on Earth is that the dolphin meat being sold to an unsuspecting public in Japan is poisoned by mercury contamination.

We have brought this to public attention since we began our campaign four years ago. More recently our testing of dolphin meat and the mercury contamination issue (including the Japan government’s cover-up with a compliant media) is receiving global attention in the award-winning documentary “The Cove.”

In Taiji, Japan, the little town that slaughters a thousand dolphins a year and sells the meat in markets around Japan, one brave town council member, Mr. Yamashita, objected to the inclusion of mercury-laden dolphin meat in the town’s school lunch program, a PR gimmick by the dolphin-killers to get another young generation hooked on poisoned dolphin meat. Taiji dropped the school lunches, but unfortunately Mr. Yamashita has been shunned and left Taiji.

However, one of his legacies was a decision by the town council to test the mercury levels in Japanese citizens in Taiji. The results have been held up for months, but now enterprising reporters in Japan are bringing out the story.

The Japan-wide news service, Kyodo News, just published this story, picked up here by The Japan Times, which has been bravely printing the story of the dolphin slaughter and our Coalition work for several years.

The story states that Taiji residents, who eat dolphin meat, are showing mercury levels ten times higher than average Japanese.

The Japan media is finally getting out the story of mercury contamination in dolphin meat. As more stories appear, more reporters and editors will feel safe in investigating further.

Mercury-laden dolphin meat is a crisis that should bring an end to the dolphin slaughter in Japan, and not just in Taiji, but all across Japan.

We still have a long way to go to get this story out to the Japanese public and help organize the protest to their government to end the cover-up and the sale of dolphin meat.

I believe we are getting closer! And we will not stop until the dolphin slaughter ends, period.


Ric O’Barry


Here’s how you can help immediately:

1. Join our Call to Action to Ban the sale of dolphin meat immediately!
   Take action at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/ban-the-sale-of-dolphin-meat
2. Help us with a donation to get the word out in Japan. When the Japanese public sees The Cove, and realizes that the dolphin meat is poison, the killing will end. Click here to Donate
   
3. Go to www.savejapandolphins.org where you can sign up to be informed of the latest updates.
4. Read the full text of the Mercury Poisoning story at:
   http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/mercury-levels-of-whale-eating-towns-residents-10-times-japan-average

KYODO NEWS/THE JAPAN TIMES
Mercury levels of whale-eating town's residents 10 times average
Friday 22nd January, 06:40 AM JST

TOKYO —
Levels of mercury in hair samples of residents of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, which is known for customarily eating small whales caught by coastal whaling, are about 10 times the average in Japan, possibly due to consumption of whale meat with high concentration of mercury, one of researchers who conducted the survey said Thursday.

Hair samples were collected from 30 men and 20 women living in the whaling town with a population of about 3,400 through local collaborators between December 2007 and July 2008 for testing, Tetsuya Endo, an associate professor at Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, said.

The survey showed the average total mercury levels in the men’s and women’s hair samples were 21.6 parts per million and 11.9 ppm, respectively, while the levels of average Japanese men and women are 2.55 ppm and 1.43 ppm, he said.

The highest concentration level discovered in the survey was 67.2 ppm in a male aged in his 50s, as a total of three people exceeded the level of 50 ppm for no observed adverse effect set by the World Health Organization, Endo said.

Endo expressed alarm that contamination levels among some of the residents appeared to be high enough to develop health problems according to oversea standards.

‘‘It’s necessary to conduct more detailed research on their health conditions and the current status of contamination,’’ he said. ‘‘We should also make efforts to curb consumption of whale meat which is highly contaminated with mercury.’‘

The researchers, also including Koichi Haraguchi at Daiichi College of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Fukuoka, will publish the survey result in an international science magazine on oceanic pollution.

According to Endo, the researchers also discovered high levels of mercury in products made from local marine mammals and fishes, such as pilot whales, dolphins, tunas and skipjack, distributed in and around the community.

In particular, the total contamination levels in the red meat from 22 samples of pilot whales, a cetacean commonly consumed in the town, averaged 9.6 ppm, with the level for methyl mercury alone coming to 5.9 ppm, both well beyond the tentative national regulation figures of 0.4 ppm and 0.3 ppm, respectively.

Among the 50 residents tested, the average total mercury level in those who eat pilot whale once a month or more was 24.6 ppm, while the levels in those who eat it only once every several months or not at all were 15.5 ppm and 4.3 ppm, respectively.

No epidemiologic survey has been conducted in Taiji although health hazards to the residents from the consumption of whale products are suspected, according to Endo.

© 2010 Kyodo News. All rights reserved.

What is happening in Taiji now?

By Helene O’Barry

Since the showing of the documentary The Cove, which exposes the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan, many rumors have swirled around one question: Did The Cove stop the killing of dolphins in Taiji? Some media outlets have publicized statements that would lead the public to believe that dolphins are no longer being hunted there. Sadly, this is not the case. The killing of many dolphins, including bottlenose dolphins, still continues in Taiji. The policy of no killing of bottlenose dolphins apparently did not last long and was most likely nothing but a strategic short-term publicity stunt, aimed at reassuring the international media that bottlenose dolphins would no longer be killed. Bottlenose dolphins are being hunted and killed in Taiji again, along with many other species of dolphin.

It is important to remember that this is the world’s largest dolphin slaughter. Japan issues 23,000 permits annually to fishermen around its shores; in Taiji alone, 1,500 or more dolphins are slaughtered every year. It has been going on for more than 400 years, although the drive fishery has only gone on for the past 70 years or so, and of course the capturing of dolphins for aquariums and swim-with-dolphins programs is a modern, very lucrative addition.

It is not realistic to think that we, or anyone else, can shut it down before this year’s hunting season ends in March 2010. In order to once and for all stop the dolphin slaughter in Japan, The Cove must be viewed by the Japanese people. So far, it has not been. There are 126 million people in Japan. Less than 300 of them have seen the documentary so far. The work, therefore, is now about launching an effort within Japan to ensure that as many Japanese people as possible see The Cove.

The Save Japan Dolphins Coalition is leading that effort, and we are currently finishing up the Japanese translations for The Cove and making copies to distribute around the country, particularly to decision-makers in Tokyo. Additionally, our Coalition will be screening copies around the major cities shortly. We are getting e-mails from people in Japan eager to help us spread the word.

Your donations help our efforts. We want to thank you for all your support. Help us reach those 126 million people in Japan by donating today:

http://www.savejapandolphins.org/donate.php

Working together with our friends in Japan and from all around the world, we can stop the killing. We are already seeing stories in the Japanese media that would never have appeared without our Save Japan Dolphins Campaign. The Japan Times, for example, recently printed a story listing ten important human rights issues in Japan — the Japan dolphin slaughter was number 9! Go to: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/fl20100105ad.html

We don’t know how long this campaign is going to take, but we are in it to win protection for all the dolphins and whales. You can count on that.

Save Japan Dolphins Coalition:
Earth Island Institute, Animal Welfare Institute, Elsa Nature Conservancy of Japan, In Defense of Animals, Campaign Whale of the UK, and OceanCare of Switzerland