Flipper’s Trainer Crusades Against Dolphin Slaughter in Japan
I really didn’t know Flipper had been gone for close to 40 years. I thought he was alive and well…
Scratch the above, I didn’t realize that flipper was actually played by a group of dolphins… Hmmm…
Either way, good luck to Richard O’Barry and his cause…
The moment Flipper died in his arms, Richard O’Barry was transformed from a dolphin trainer into an activist determined to free captive dolphins around the world.
That was 39 years ago. Today, the man who trained Flipper for the popular 1960s TV series is crusading against the slaughter of dolphins in Japan, captured by hidden cameras in a chilling documentary called “The Cove” that’s being shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Flipper
About 23,000 dolphins are killed in Japan every year, O’Barry said. The film, directed by nature photographer and environmentalist Louie Psihoyos, focuses on Taiji, a Japanese village where 2,300 dolphins are speared to death every year for meat. A dead dolphin sells for about $600, while captured ones can go for as much as $200,000 apiece to aquariums and dolphin parks.
“What’s happening in Taiji is a horror show,” O’Barry, 69, said in an interview at a Park City cafe. “I won’t sleep until it is stopped.”
O’Barry has been on a dolphin-protection crusade since the day in 1970 that Kathy, one of the dolphins that played Flipper, died in a steel tank at the Miami Seaquarium while he was holding her. O’Barry is convinced that Kathy was sick and depressed from being held in captivity and forced to do tricks for the TV show.
“Dolphins are extremely intelligent and they get bored to death when they have to do the same things over and over,” he said. “They have larger brains than their trainers and they’ve been around a lot longer than we have.”
‘Ocean’s Eleven’ Crew
The day after Kathy died, O’Barry flew from Miami to Bimini, where he was arrested for trying to free an enclosed dolphin. He said he had known for years that dolphins suffered in captivity, but did nothing about it because he was profiting from the system.
“I was probably the highest-paid animal trainer in the world,” O’Barry said. “I was buying a new Porsche every year, whether I needed one or not. Now I ride a bicycle.”