The Rhetoric of Overfishing

 

The focused rhetoric of The Cove succeeds where the environmental ethics perspectives of Darwin’s Nightmare and The End of the Line fail to convey the same emotional power. Ultimately, even though animal liberation arguments may privilege some elements of the natural world over others, such an individualized approach has been shown to have more effective results. According to Ric O’Barry, the Taiji dolphin slaughter was suspended in September 2009 because of the publicity surrounding the film, The Cove (“Save Japan Dolphins), and as late as March 2, 2011, Taiji fishermen were returning to traditional fishing practices rather than dolphin slaughter. Even though dolphin killing continues, it has “drastically decreased compared to previous seasons,” O’Barry explains (“Save Japan Dolphins”). 

Today O’Barry is continuing to garner support from Japanese journalists and local students and community members in Wakayama City, Tokyo, and other towns throughout the country. O’Barry sees this response to The Cove as a major victory because, “Our Save Japan Dolphins Team and I have been meeting with media for years about the dolphin slaughter in Japan, but now the Japanese media is coming to us!” According to O’Barry, they opened The Cove in Japan despite intense opposition and a press conference after the film’s release “was attended by over 100 media representatives, including every major broadcast outlet” (“Save Japan Dolphins”). Because of the continuing success of The Cove, dolphin slaughter is on the wane. 

Perhaps, then, films taking an organismic approach to eco-resistance might learn from the strategies invoked in a powerful animal liberation film like The Cove. As Holmes Bolston, III explains, “Development in the West has been based on the Enlightenment myth of endless growth…. [Yet] none of the developed nations have yet settled into sustainable culture on their landscapes” (528). By moving from an animal rights perspective to an animal welfare approach, environmentalists may find a way to individualize environmental issues without diluting the need for a biotic community. An animal welfare approach can provide an emotional center missing from both Darwin’s Nightmare and The End of the Line and, perhaps, facilitate an eco-activist response that culminates in the powerful eco-resistance that is central to The Cove. The End of the Line could, for example, “humanize” selected species of aquatic life, demonstrating that they, like humans, have rights. A film similar to Darwin’s Nightmare might both highlight aquatic biospheres in which environmental changes might address species disruption and highlight native species worth saving because of their sentience. Such a focus on both individual species and their biotic communities could have the same result as the animal rights focus of The Cove: more than two million signatures on a petition that will, it is hoped, end dolphin slaughter for good.