The sound of
painful, high-pitched squeals and squeaks.
The sight of dark figures violently
thrashing about…and the resultant spray of carmine seawater into the gray air
with each rapid movement. The sickening expressions made by the
Japanese fisherman, wielding spears and perched precariously on small scows or
swimming nearby in the blood-water…looks
ranging from indifference, to complacency, to amusement.
Each time I view TheCove, these and other horrifying visual and auditory experiences grow ever
more alarming…commencing feelings of anger, helplessness, sadness, and sheer disbelief.
Welcome to the “Cove.”
Welcome to the “Cove.”
In this 2009 documentary film directed and narrated by famed
nature photographer, Louie Psihoyos,
viewers learn about the origins and life
of captive dolphins, as well as the
global plight of cetaceans in general.
Early on, the audience is shown images
of Taiji, Japan, a “little town with a
big secret.” We learn that Taiji is a town that “loves” cetaceans, dolphins
especially: businesses adorn buildings, buses, and benches with the familiar curved form of a dolphin mid-leap,
there are “dolphinariums” where
visitors excitedly gather to watch dolphin
shows, tourists flock dolphin-themed
gift shops filled with—you guessed it—all types of dolphin paraphernalia…
So, what’s the secret? Taiji
is the world’s number-one exporter of dolphins—dead and alive—destined for both
“dolphinariums” and dinner plates. This small Japanese village is home to the “Cove,” a convenient, pint-size natural
geographic blip in the coastline, where local fisherman and dolphin trainers entrap dolphins. After trapping
the dolphins, viewers learn that certain
dolphins are selected and harvested
for export to serve as “actors” in
dolphin shows, or are brutally killed and will be turned into food for humans (despite
the fact that scientists have proven it to contain up to 2000ppm of Mercury—the maximum level of which, in
any type of food, should not exceed 0.4ppm).
Joining Louie Psihoyos is a
team of scientists, activists, filmmakers, and other concerned citizens serving
as support staff for the OceanicPreservation Society’s mission in Japan…to
expose the brutal industry that
surrounds dolphin entertainment. Former Flipper dolphin trainer, Ric O’Barry,
teaches us that a dolphin’s “smile” is
“nature’s greatest deception.”
Watching The Cove certainly
made me hard about the pain and suffering hiding behind all of those “smiles” we see at SeaWorld and on television.
That is what upsets
me the most; the fact that such
incredibly horrible abuse is an industry. It is carried off on an extraordinarily large scale. Viewers learn that each dolphin sold for performance purposes can fetch
up to $150,000 per dolphin, with the
slaughtered dolphins selling at a
lower cost for meat. I am shocked by both the massive scale and the unnatural
mechanization of the dolphin capture and kill practices in Taiji.
The fishermen are shown as taking
full advantage of nature: turning what could be a peaceful lagoon into a blood-drenched killing zone—the “Cove.” By exploiting
the extraordinarily sensitive sense of hearing and sonar that dolphins possess,
the fishermen scare the stressed dolphins
into the “Cove” by banging poles on the bottom of the
seafloor from their boats. Closing off
the lagoon, the dolphins are trapped,
and face their fate…
To me, the most powerful
image shown repeatedly through the
film is that of the water of the “Cove”
stained to a near-maroon hue with dolphin blood, an interval of catch and
kill caught on camera undercover by
the OPS team…it is an image that never wants to make me see a captive dolphin again.
Linda Hogan’s “Deify the Wolf” (from her book Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World), like The Cove, similarly makes reference to
the commoditized nature that is so
pervasive in our society. Reading
Hogan’s piece, which discusses the human
fascination and controversy that surround the wolf, I find myself
questioning human exploitation of nature, and how such destructive practices have
been influenced by the media, and
its these human beliefs and practices mean for animals themselves. Hogan’s writing, riveting and rich, delivers potent images into the minds of
readers, enabling her audience to truly “picture”
the effects of commoditized nature on both human society and nature itself.
How does media and
nature-based entertainment such as zoos influence human behavior and action? Hogan recalls on her visit to see wolves in Ely, Minnesota:
“One man has come because he wants to see the threatened wolves before they are extinct. A California woman thinks seeing the wolves would be ‘like in the movies.’ Another man is a trapper who earns $1,500 a year trapping fur animals and says he’ll hunt and trap as long as women wear fur coats."
This passage clearly illustrates the effects of media, advertising, and culture in shaping our relationship
to nature. Hogan’s words show that
the images and stories people see and hear about nature come to shape our culture, and thus our
relationship to the outdoors and the animals
that live “out there.” I
wonder what a wolf would think, with its “golden” eyes facing down the barrel of a shotgun, if it knew a
woman would be wearing its fuzzy hide
sometime in the not-too-distant future…all because human society has deemed its fur as “fashion…”
The “golden eyes”
of wolves are also discussed in Mary Oliver’s poem, “Meeting Wolf” (from her book Evidence: Poems). The poem itself, spare and concisely written,
discusses a human-animal encounter in which the speaker stands one-on-one with a wolf. I find Oliver’s
poem to be an interesting take on the possible
inner feelings of animals who have been exploited or harmed by humans as a product of
nature’s commoditization.
One writing choice
in particular that I enjoyed was Oliver’s
repetition of the word “inside.” “Inside his mouth”/“inside his golden eyes,” are
lines that work to transport readers
into the very psyche of the wolf in the poem. In particular, the use of the symbol of
“eyes” as a portal “inside” the soul of a living being is quite strong in
conveying such a message, since it is nearly universally understood; there is
so much information about emotion that can be gleaned from looking into one’s
eyes…human and animal. I feel
as though that is Oliver’s main
purpose in writing “Meeting Wolf;” to transport her readers into the proverbial
“shoes” of the wolf…of an animal that has been so exploited, so ill-spoken of,
so dreaded, so hated, so abused by humans….
The last lines of
the poem hold the most power for me, and provide
readers with a necessary break from the “me, me, me” mindset of human culture. Instead,
readers are advised to think of their impact on nature, how the
environment has been degraded through human action and what that means for the wolf: “He has given me”/“a glimpse into a
better but now broken world.”/ “Not his doing, but ours.” Oliver’s poem encourages readers to
contemplate the “domino” effects of
human-nature interaction…namely, negative
anthropogenic actions, and how other life on earth is impacted, forced to face changes and challenges
thanks to us and our, exceedingly
commercially-driven, desires. “Not his doing, but ours.”
Like Oliver,
writer Alice Walker emphasizes the importance of assuming an animal’s
point of view when it comes to making decisions that either directly or
indirectly impact non-human
creatures. In her piece, “Am I Blue?” Walker describes her memory of “Blue,” “a large white horse”
living on the property next-door to her home in the country. Walker
describes her connection to Blue,
forged mainly through her offering him apples. Also similarly to Oliver, Walker makes
mention the commonly-used symbol of “eyes”
as a portal into which one may view another’s soul: “…I had forgotten the depth
of feeling one could see in horses’ eyes” (4).
Eyes are
mentioned throughout, both Blue’s and
Alice’s. Although some may see this
attribution of emotion as observed through Blue’s eyes as anthropomorphism, I firmly believe this to be false. Animals do have emotion, feeling,
and consciousness, as scientific fact has revealed. It
enrages me when people claim animals to be unfeeling or emotionless—of course they feel! I
applaud Walker for comparing her emotion
to Blue’s, as it opens up the discussion
around animal exploitation and abuse, it urges humans to think, “What would I feel like if I were the
animal? With my daily routine being
controlled by someone else, with limited or no choices as to what I can do…”. Thus, my favorite “eye” passage in the piece is that in which Walker attempts to put herself in Blue’s “shoes:” “If I had been born into slavery, and my
partner had been sold or killed, my eyes would have looked like that” (7). Humans must
bring animal rights and feelings to
the table when making environmental
choices. It is only fair.
Visually stimulating and exciting, James Cameron’s 2009 film, Avatar, provides readers with a cautionary
science-fiction tale that invites viewers to contemplate their role as humans on earth. While viewing, I often find myself thinking,
“How do my actions as a human affect the world around me?” The animation of the film is spectacular,
vivid images of the Na’vi tribe and
their life on planet Pandora work to
capture the attention of virtually every viewer, young and old alike. Although the
deep human-nature-animal themes of the film did intrigue me, for the most
part, I find the film to be quite disturbing.
Namely, I find the images
of humans mining Pandora for the valuable mineral “unobtanium” to be eerily similar to the situation that is
and has been unfolding in the Amazon
for centuries. In Alexamder Zaitchik’s Salon article “To Get the Gold, They Will Have to Kill Every One of Us,” readers learn of the
history and possible future for the Shuartribe in Ecuador; a story which
resembles that of the Na’vi in Avatar. Zaitchik’s
lush, verdant written descriptions
of the Amazon jungles contrasted
with his details of the desolate and
damaging mining industry mirrors the intense
visual animations visible in Avatar. I was astounded and appalled
to learn about this real-life Avatar situation. Readers are forced to
contemplate the consequences of such destructive mining by the Correia Mining Company on the Shuar tribe's land through interviews with the Shuar people—thus
enabling their assumption of the Shuar
perspective, one which I believe is crucial in understanding the weight of the problem. As one tribesman
put it, “Correia’s mining policy will
be the end of everything. Already
the exploratory wells are polluting the
water…it is just the beginning. Eventually everyone here will die from the chemicals.” Clearly, more
people need to take on the perspective of all beings—human, plant, and animal—in the
decision making process when it comes to creating environmental policy. As Avatar and the real-life Shuar situation reveal, human actions
that may benefit one group may mean
the destruction of another.
In regard to humans
making non-human decisions, and what this means for animal rights, consider
this February 2013 Bloomberg Business article, “Cutting-Edge Canines: The World of Dog
Plastic Surgery” by Mark Ellwood. Ellwood
describes the plastic surgery methods
humans employ as a means of boosting
their pets’ “appeal.” I was horrified to learn that American dog owners spent about $62 million on plastic surgery in 2011
(according to pet insurer, PetPlan).
Readers may wonder why “pet
plastic surgery” persists…I find myself cringing when I read this article, learning about “Neuticals” and “Caninoplasty.” As Ellwood
describes, human desires are driven by
media and based off of human ideals, including—horrifyingly—those of “The American Kennel Club,” an
organization meant to promote the
“dogness” of dogs. This article
clearly demonstrates how nature has been commoditized and is being sold by the media—in this case, as pet owners see
the “idealized” image of their companions on television, in movies,
on commercials, they are compelled to partake such abusive practices...all so that their pet will look—pun intended—“purr-fect.”
Dog nose jobs? Really, people?
Erica Cirino
