Oh, what a joyous week! Did you see “The Cove” documentary and its coverage of the dolphin-for-food slaughter in Taiji, Japan? Gnarly, powerful. Now from Taiji comes apparently good news: According to Inhabit blog, “In the summer of giant robots, red matter, and aliens in South Africa, one little movie has managed to do what no other has done: have an impact on the real world…believe it or not, the dolphin killings have stopped – all thanks to this great little thriller of a movie!” Entertainment Weekly reported, “The Cove worked! Dolphin Slaughter Stops in Taiji”. Well, not so fast, exclamation point-loving bloggers. Don’t believe for one minute that the killing has stopped.

In fact, to the contrary, the Taiji government has announced the dolphin hunt will resume, as it has for decades, between now and February 1, the end of the season, according to Bloomberg.

“My understanding is that our fishermen are preparing for the hunt this season, and I haven’t heard that there is any change in plans,” said Hironobu Ryono, a Taiji government spokesman.

The false reports of cessation of the killing stem from an online post by The Cove’s Richard O’Barry.

“Today is September 1, the first day of the dolphin slaughter season in Japan,” O’Barry wrote. “But when I arrived today by bus from Kansai Airport with media representatives from all over the world, the notorious Cove from the movie was empty. There were no dolphin killers in sight.”

“No dolphins and no dolphin killers. We would not have had a story at all, except for the police who were there, waiting all day for us to appear. Nine policemen came to talk to us.”

Bingo–there is no story, except for the wrongful and simplistic interpretation of some mushy-headed editors and bloggers, who saw that on one day out of all the days under the sun there were no dolphin fisherman actively hunting in Taiji and leaped to false conclusions. It’s enough to drive a responsible journalist crazy. Entertainment Weekly even acknowledged the superficiality of the point in its story, yet went on to write, “The makers of The Cove can feel proud that at the very least several dozen dolphins are alive today thanks to their efforts…Doesn’t that just make y’all feel warm and fuzzy inside? What other movies — non-fiction or otherwise — have gotten you to change your life in a big way?”

They’re starting to sound like politicians, twisting or ignoring the facts to present the world as they’d like to see it.

As for the dolphins, the real world suggests that nothing will change any time soon. As Bloomberg reports, Taiji is one town among many that hunts dolphins for food. In the Wakayama prefecture where it’s located, 1,623 dolphins were taken in 2007, and Wakayama is just one of eight prefectures permitted to hunt. The annual count is around 20,000.

Tagged as: asia, environment, wildlife