Special OPS
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Kristinha M. Anding
Covert capture with the Oceanic Preservation Society.
Editor's note: The Cove has just been presented The Audience Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Clockwise from left: Louie Psihoyos, Joe Chisholm, and Charles Hambleton of the Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) used camouflaged Sony PDW-F350 XDCAM HDs and FLIR Systems ThermaCAM P640 HD infrared cameras to capture footage of secretive dolphin slaughter operations for The Cove, an OPS film that tracks the link between oceanic pollution and human health.
Top photo: © 2008 Louie Psihoyos
There's Something Very Mission: Impossible about the Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), a Boulder, Colo.-based nonprofit that creates films about the decline of the Earth's oceans — and stops at virtually nothing to get a good shot.
Executive Director Louie Psihoyos spent years as a professional photographer shooting stunning images for publications including National Geographic before launching the OPS with the backing of billionaire Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and WebMD. Psihoyos then enlisted a little help from his friends: a dream team of professionals with expertise in everything from sailing and diving to avionics technology. This diverse skill set came in handy when the OPS brought its cameras — and commitment — to the land, sea, and air of Taiji, Japan.
According to Psihoyos, the small coastal fishing village has been the scene of a secretive slaughter operation taking the lives of thousands of dolphins annually.
“It's called drive fishing,” Pishoyos says. “Thirteen boats go out, and they just wait for the dolphins to come by on their ancient migratory route. Once they come, they start banging on these pipes in the water. They make this wall of sound and start to slowly push the dolphins in one direction. They drive them into this lagoon, seal it off with nets, and then, the next day, come back for the slaughter.”
Psihoyos says the killings are legally and ethically questionable. But truly controversial, he says, is that the dolphin meat, contaminated with mercury levels up to 3,500 times higher than those allowable by Japanese law, has ended up in the nation's school lunch programs and the food supply at large. He decided to make the dolphin slaughter the launching point for The Cove, an OPS film revealing the connection between oceanic pollution and human health.
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