Don’t sit back and relax, don’t make yourself some popcorn, and don’t get ready to enjoy this movie. The Cove is an Academy-Award-winning documentary (best documentary) by Rick O’Barry that exposes a brutal dolphin slaughter in a small cove in the town of Taigi, Japan, where over 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed every year. It is an hour and a half that you will not enjoy, but it is one of the most moving and important films I have ever seen.

Rick O’Barry is the former capturer and trainer of the five bottlenose dolphins used in the TV show “Flipper”. Shortly after the show ended, one of them swam into him arms and stopped breathing. Since dolphins are “active breathers” it was clear to O’Barry that this dolphin had committed suicide. The next day he was arrested for freeing a captive dolphin and has been continuing that fight ever since.

The first hour of this film is more like an action-adventure-suspense movie than a documentary. Most of it is spent showing the lengths the crew had to go and the dangers they faced  just to get the incriminating footage of the cove. The team of divers, activists, techies, and ex-military men face long imprisonment and even death when they cross the boundary to the cove to place their equipment.

In between action sequences, there is one eye-opening revelation about the dolphin industry after another, from the extremely toxic levels of mercury in the meat (which was put in Japanese school lunches) to the effect closed captivity has on dolphin sonar (like a human living in a house of mirrors) resulting in such extreme ulcers that they are fed a bottle of acid reducers every day. But all of this is just a mild preamble.

They do such an extensive job setting it up that I felt nervous when they finally got the footage of what happens in the cove. Sort of like when your friend tells you over and over how great the pizza is at a particular restaurant, but when you finally eat it, it’s only “OK”. Not the case here. Not even close. Nothing can prepare you for what you see next. Hundreds of dolphins every day, stabbed and then left to bleed to death. The cove in no way even resembles water; it is deep red with blood. It is difficult to watch, which is why it is so important.

I realize that this is less of a movie review and more of a call to action, but please give it a watch. It is available on iTunes, Amazon, and DVD. If you really don’t have the stomach, and I don’t blame you, you can still take action. Visit TheCoveMovie.com, text “dolphin”  to 44144 to join a subscriber list and get involved, or just make a simple donation.

It’s a strange feeling to be glad you watched something that you enjoyed so little.

Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal’s population soar, federal officials said Thursday.

An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the United States in the early 20th century.

Great, right? The Endangered Species Program works. That’s great, right? Right? Ummm:

The loss of federal protection allows the three states to move forward with plans allowing hunters to target the animals, possibly as soon as this fall.

Damn it. And we were this close to good news.

Thankfully, an organization called Earth Justice is suing the feds to keep the wolves protected. Here’s their take:

Gray wolves have come perilously close to extinction in the Rocky Mountains. Only in the past decade has the wolf population rebounded from a population of less than 50 to more than 1,300 wolves today. Visitors come to Yellowstone every year to get the chance to see and hear wolves in the wild.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued two rules that would not only reverse these hard-won gains, by killing hundreds of these magnificent predators. One rule would remove gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains from protection under the Endangered Species Act. The other rule would allow states in the Northern Rockies to kill wolves whenever wolves had impacts on wild ungulate populations.

The governors of Idaho and Wyoming express outright hostility toward wolves, and numerous counties in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming have adopted resolutions declaring wolves an “unacceptable species.” Once wolves are delisted, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana could reduce wolf populations to a paltry 100 wolves per state — in other words, they could destroy 1,000 wolves out of the current 1,300-wolf population.

We’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: this, this right here, is yet another example of why the government can’t be trusted to behave, and why it must be watched closely as the toddler it is by its citizens.

We’ll post more about this particular issue as it develops.

Photo c/o this dude.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

-Mahatma Gandhi

I guess this doesn't say much about our nation's greatness and moral progress. Between three and four million dogs and cats are euthanized at animal shelters in the United States every year, while “puppy mills– pump out new dogs in conditions that, according to the Humane Society, promote over-breeding, inbreeding, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of socialization with humans, overcrowded cages, and the killing of unwanted animals.

These numbers sicken me when I think of my animals and quality of care that they get. But for Bobby and Kelly Dorafshar, it moved them to start A New Leash On Life:

A nonprofit organization designed to reduce the number of animals abandoned and euthanized in Los Angeles and to educate the public, through a series of seminars, on responsible pet ownership.

They first opened this no-kill shelter in 1997, and have joined with animal rescue veterans in Chicago to open up a branch in “The Windy City.– Together they have saved the lives of over 3,000 animals while neutering thousands more and providing invaluable public education and awareness.

While these shelters may only exist in the second and third largest cities in the country, you don't have to live there to participate. By visiting their website you can adopt, foster, or sponsor a dog, volunteer with A New Leash on Life, or make a tax-deductible donation. Whichever way you choose, for Lenny's, Vera's, and Whizzer's sake, please lend a hand.

Last week, she pointed this one out which I found on MSNBC.com:

Human volunteers (are) testing a vaccine for melanoma – ” a potentially fatal skin cancer that strikes 60,000 Americans a year.

The human results at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center are not in yet, but a few blocks away in New York at the Animal Medical Center, veterinarians heard about the vaccine and asked to try it in dogs.

What makes this study so intriguing (other than the fact that it is curing cancer) is that the vaccine was originally intended to reduce the likelihood of reoccurrence of melanoma in patients that have already been treated for the skin cancer. But when the treatment was used on a dog that currently had the fatal disease, the dog:

Underwent complete disappearance of his tumor. Since then, more than 100 dogs have been treated– ¦ The vaccine works so well that the U.S. department of Agriculture is about to license it as a treatment of melanoma in dogs.

It'll take some time before it's deemed safe for regular treatment of human melanoma, but it's nice to know what's on the medical horizon. It's also nice to know that the newest acquisition of our family (pictured – right) will have a better chance of living a full and healthy life, and that his kind could help his partner in crime (left) do the same.

Here's one of those things

According to a report by the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world’s leading bodies of whale biologists, the evidence linking sonar to a series of whale strandings in recent years is “very convincing and appears overwhelming.” Despite the broad scientific consensus that military active sonar kills whales, the use of this deadly sonar in the world’s oceans is spreading.

The first time this came up was in the Bahamas when the United States Navy conducted a training exercise during which they used Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar. Shortly after, whales from four different species beached themselves on the nearby islands. These whales were there because of massive bleeding in their brains and ears. Beaked Whales, observed in the Bahamas for decades, have not been seen there since.

How load is that sonar to a whale?

Some mid-frequency sonar systems can put out over 235 decibels, as loud as a Saturn V rocket at launch. Even 100 miles from the LFA system, sound levels can approach 160 decibels, well beyond the Navy’s own safety limits for humans.

In other words, it's like standing under a twin-engine jet fighter during take-off, except that marine mammals don't have those noise-canceling headsets that air traffic controllers have.

It's easy to overlook this practice because we are, and rightfully so, sympathetic to our military. But I believe that there can exist a balance between safety and environmental stewardship, even for the brave men and women in our armed forces. And as more nations join in this practice, it becomes more important to stop it.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has put together a petition to send to the Secretary of the Navy, Donald Winter, asking him to take the following measures:

• Put rich marine mammal habitat off limits.
• Avoid migration routes and feeding or breeding areas when marine mammals are present.
• Listen with passive sonar to ensure marine mammals are not in the testing area before switching on active sonar.
• Establishing appropriate safety zones around ships transmitting sonar.
• Reduce the source level of sonar signals at nighttime and in other periods of low visibility.

These are very reasonable measures to keep our Navy safe from attack and prevent marine mammals from suffering a horrible death. So please find 30 seconds in your busy day to join me in signing the petition. Then if you want to learn more, and this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, check out this video, narrated by Pierce Brosnan. It’s heartbreakingly horrifying.