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Save Japan Dolphins logo: stylized dolphin in a rescue ring. Click to visit the coalition Web siteCall to Action
from Ric O’Barry and Save Japan Dolphins:

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Welcome aboard the effort to stop the largest killing of dolphins and whales in the world. Thanks for signing on through the Care2 Petition and requesting further information.

As you may know, at this year’s Oscars, The Cove won the Best Documentary. Without your support, this would never have happened. This is our moment to make a difference.

This has never been about winning awards. Our job is to end the slaughter and stop the poisoning. And now our work in Japan begins anew. We must focus like a laser on getting The Cove and our message to the Japanese people.

But there are threats on the horizon. Officials in Japan are stopping university and community groups from showing The Cove. Dolphin-killing fishermen’s unions are threatening lawsuits and aggressive protests against theaters that show the film. There are also some signs that I could face arrest in Japan, even though I’ve broken no laws.

We aren’t giving in to this pressure. Instead, I am making plans to spend months in Japan with our Save Japan Dolphins Team. I want to be wherever we can find an audience. Our message will particularly resonate with young people, to whom we need to reach out with the dangers of mercury-contaminated dolphin meat and the slaughter of dolphins they love as much as we do.

If you can help me, it will make a world of difference.

I also need your help in sending a clear message to Japan’s Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, that the sale of mercury-laden dolphin meat must end now: Sign and send the petition at: thepetitionsite.com/4/ban-the-sale-of-dolphin-meat.

We need your help in promoting the Japanese version of The Cove in the next weeks before The Cove opens at Japanese theaters. We need help for travel, video promotion, website outreach, legal defense, and screening The Cove outside of theaters in libraries, universities, and town halls in Japan.

Japan has 126 million people; only 600 have seen The Cove so far. Those who saw it were shocked and dismayed that this slaughter was happening in their country. We need to enlist their help and the help of millions of their fellow citizens to stop the Japanese government from issuing 23,000 permits annually to slaughter dolphins. We need to seize on the momentum now to pursue an end to the slaughter, once and for all!

Will you help us get the truth out?

Thank you for your generous support of our efforts! We’ll look forward to keeping you posted.

graphic of a signature, Ric Obarry
Ric O’Barry
Campaign Director
Save Japan Dolphins Campaign

P.S. The Save Japan Dolphins Campaign and Earth Island Institute do not get any funds from The Cove movie sales. (Those funds go to the OPS, which made the film, and their investors to reimburse them for their considerable costs in making The Cove.)