Ric O'Barry - The Cove

I have just seen the documentary film "The Cove"which describes the killing of dolphins that is happening every year in a cove near Taiji in Japan. Ric O'Barry who was first recognised for training the  five dolphins that played the role of "Flipper" in the 1960's is now fighting as an activist against the capturing and killing of that remarkable species.

According to the film, 23.000 dolphins get killed annually in a season that starts in September and carries on for a couple of months every year. Whilst the way this slaughtering seems to happen certainly raises huge concerns there are also a number of other puzzling questions brought up in that context.

Why get so many animals killed, as apparently not that many people - whilst eating meat of bigger Whales is accepted in Japan - do eat dolphins? The hypothesis brought up is that dolphin meat is sold labeled as Whale meat.

It seems that dolphins - due to their position towards the end of the food chain - have accumulated large and toxic amounts of mercury in their bodies. Whilst this accumulation of mercury in dolphins itself is already tragic enough, why do humans get exposed to eat such intoxicated meat as well?

Why seems the Japanese population not to know about that?

Why are bodies like the International Whaling Commission (IWC) not able to find mechanisms to deal with these sort of problems?

It is known that dolphins are highly intelligent animals which apparently also possess self consciousness and this is certainly also true for other living beings on this planet. How can we - the human race - get connected and start to realise that we are closely interwoven in that system? We need to use our own intelligence and consciousness to drive the changes required in this world.