Dolphin kill film to shock Taiji sister city Broome

PRESSURE will mount on Broome to dump its Japanese sister city, Taiji, after the Australian premiere of the new documentary The Cove.American Louie Psihoyos's film reveals undercover footage from the Japanese port of the systematic annual capture and slaughter of thousands of dolphins for sale and consumption. "It's like an Auschwitz for dolphins," said Psihoyos, in Australia for the documentary's Sydney Film Festival premiere. "A lot of people who work in this industry feel it's going to put the nail in the coffin of the dolphin hunting industry," said the photographer for National Geographic and director of the Oceanic Preservation Society. "There's no way it can keep going on, not just because of the inhumanity to animals but because of the inhumanity to man. People don't realise these dolphins they're eating are toxic." Psihoyos's environmental film is also a thriller, as his team, bankrolled in part by Jim Clark, the American billionaire husband of Australian model Kirsty Hinze, infiltrates a guarded cove next to the whaling town, south of Osaka. They are intimidated, followed and harassed by townsfolk trying to protect their livelihood. The team's undercover footage, captured largely by cameras under fake rocks designed by a Hollywood special effects house, is unforgettable. It shows the herding and butchering of hundreds of dolphins in a secluded cove, turning the water red with blood. Some of the netted dolphins will be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars to aquariums, but most will be sold as dolphin meat or as a substitute for whale meat. "The Taiji government and the Japanese government have done an excellent job so far of keeping quiet what goes on in that secret cove," Psihoyos said. "Now the secret's out, and the question is what does the rest of humanity do." The documentary has already had one win. Its revelation that dolphin meat is dangerously toxic with mercury, among other things, has resulted in dolphin meat being taken off the school menus in the Taiji area. The director hopes the screenings at the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane film festivals will build awareness in Australia, and result in Broome pressuring its "twisted sister city". "Once it's revealed to Broome, to the people of Broome, what happens in their sister city, they've got to be shocked," Psihoyos said. "Broome is an eco-destination - they celebrate dolphins and whales there, and here you have the equivalent of that celebration of dolphins happening in Taiji, but it's also this unimaginable killing field." Psihoyos doubts the film will be commercially released in Japan, and he is considering raising money to have it subtitled in Japanese and put on YouTube.The Australian