Swimming with dolphins is for assholes

When he speaks about the impact of captivity on the mammals, he doesn’t sound like a showboater, and what might seem like New Age-y talk about dolphin intelligence is pointed up with footage that left me haunted, too. That smile, says O’Barry, is nature’s greatest deception. Dolphins smile even when they’re crying on the inside.

Living in Florida, I am used to certain theme-and-water-park douchebaggery.

Comes with the heat, bugs, and old people driving 30-mph down the highway.

But there is something vastly disturbing about certain aquariums and water parks. And not only in Florida.

Most of the places where you are allowed to swim, pet, and kiss dolphins are getting these self-aware and beautiful creatures from the seas of Japan. Trainers from all over the world flock to a little town called Taiji where about thirteen fisherman use loud noises to frighten hundreds of dolphins every year and force them into a tiny cove.

Once there, trainers pick only the cutest, sweetest animals to fill our resorts, parks, and petting ponds.

The ones who don’t make the cut are slaughtered and the meat (poisoned with mercury) is fed to an unsuspecting public. The ones who do make it out become lethargic, depressed, and sometimes kill themselves.

See, your paradise is a fucking nightmare to them. This *dophin petting* thing is a cold and cruel business.

Which is so not hot. And neither are the pictures of you in a bathing suit rubbing up against them.

You don’t look like an animal lover. You look like an ass.

The Cove is coming to The Tampa Theatre this weekend. It’s an important film because it documents the way these precious animals are tortured and killed.

The filmmakers were recently on Fresh Air and I dare you to listen without feeling sick to your stomach.

WARNING: TANGENT TIME – The activist featured in the film, former Flipper trainer Ric O’Barry, says that people who compare the lagoon to a slaughterhouse are wrong. He says that animals in a slaughterhouse aren’t tortured before they’re killed. And that’s why this is worse.

He just wants us to swallow that shit so he can swallow that burger he’s eating.

But I agree with him on everything else. I hope The Cove encourages people to bypass cruelty disguised as entertainment. Family fun shouldn’t be so bloody awful.

Stop loving dolphins so much and instead help set them free. Your love, after all, is killing them.

Tags: killing dolphins, the cove