Last night we saw a screening of the movie, The Cove. While the movie had a few messages, the main takeaway is that there is an annual slaughter of 23K dolphins in Taiji, Japan. That’s where they capture and sell dolphins to marine parks all over the world. They kill and sell the rest of them as food, sometimes misleadingly marked as whale meat.

The movie shows that dolphins are deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures in the open ocean. But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and “Keep Out” signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling — and the consequences are so dangerous to human health — they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.

If you are in Phoenix, the film will play starting Friday August 7 for at least a week, depending on the demand. Please consider taking a group to see this film, and then, Tweet, become a fan on Facebook, and protest this inconceivable event before they strike again this September when the dolphins migration patterns lead them to this horrific fate.