Ric O’Barry & The Cove

At the top of my dog Ella’s blog lies a quote from Ric O’Barry, one of my heroes. “We teach the child not to hurt the butterfly as much for the child as for the butterfly.” In my opinion, there is no saying more tender, more simple. Ella, a victim of animal cruelty, is my butterfly. She has given me the wings to embrace and advocate what I am most passionate about, protecting animals.

When I was a child I had dreams of becoming an ice cream truck driver. Luckily, for my waistline, those dreams later changed to becoming a marine cetalogist. I think I got off on telling people what cetology – the study of whales, dolphins and porpoises – meant. And no matter what, they always translated that into me wanting to be a dolphin trainer, like Ric O’Barry was to Flipper. Sure no one knew who Ric O’Barry was, but everyone knew who Flipper was. I would tell people that yes, I wanted to be like Flipper’s “former” trainer, but that no, I did not want to train Flipper, or any other dolphin for that matter. It seemed incredulous to me, even at a very young age, that anyone have the right to study these creatures anywhere, but in the wild.

Somewhere around 10th grade biology class, all my dreams of being a scientist, ceased. It turned out I was not very good at memorization, or test-taking for that matter, and so my apirations were rerouted once again.

I have always been distantly cognizant of the work of Ric O’Barry. The man spent 10 years in the 60’s working in the dolphin captivity industry training five dolphins to play the role of Flipper, and the next few decades activating against the industry. So it was of no great surprise to me that he’d be featured in The Cove, a ground-breaking documentary on the dolphin captivity and slaughter industry that garnered a wide theatrical release and went on to win an Oscar.

Even though the movie came out this past September it took being up thousands of feet in the air on a Virgin America flight last week, for me to see it. Sure, I cried — I’m not sure anyone can sit through this documentary dry-eyed. But watching these people band together to shoot this film… the courage, passion and extreme measures they went to, it was beyond humbling. And of course Ric O’Barry, remains, my hero.