At 70, Ric O’Barry Would Love to Be at Home Watering His Bamboo and Playing with His Five-Year-Old Daughter. Instead, He Spends Most of His Time with People Who Hate Him.

The Reluctant Warrior

by Jason Mark

photo by Sam Willard COVER STORY

T WASN’T NOON YET, and When O’Barry gives an interview, death. You literally bore them to death. Ric O’Barry was tired. He had he makes long, steady moves with his You go to the Sydney Zoo and look Icircled the globe during the past hands. This habit makes it hard to miss at the snake exhibit: there’s trees and month, first flying from his home in Co- the dolphin tattoo on his left hand, or branches. Even a cold-blooded snake is conut Grove, Florida to Taiji, Japan to the fact that he is missing the top of his given more consideration.” monitor the start of the annual dolphin right thumb, which he blew off while Next, he took the crew to a small hunt, then from Japan to France on working on the James Bond film Never cinderblock building where two spotted a press junket, home to Florida for a Say Never Again. At 70, his white hair is dolphins were swimming back and brief stop, then back again to Taiji. In thin and the line of his jaw has soft- forth in a pool barely 20 feet long by 15 a few days, O’Barry would return to ened, but his brown eyes are sharp. He feet wide. The dolphins kept coming Europe to promote the documentary wears almost the same outfit every day: up to the glass to make eye contact with film he stars in, The Cove, and finally khaki pants, a khaki cargo vest with the human onlookers. wrap up 62 days of constant campaign- “Dolphin Rescue Team” embroidered O’Barry addressed the camera: ing. Now, standing on a forested hillside on the breast, a beaten tan hat with “This is not living. This is surviving. above the lovely aquamarine inlet that captain’s laurels ironed on the brim, Living is feeding in the ocean, swim- has become infamous for the slaughter and two-toned Sperry Top-Siders, ming 40 miles a day. This is sensory of dolphins, he waited for a crew from no socks. The overall affect is of an deprivation. They say this is about 60 Minutes-Australia to get the right avuncular hipster, a kind of Pirate for education, to create an appreciation angle on a setup shot. He yawned. Good who doesn’t seem to notice if for dolphins. But the education doesn’t But fatigue wasn’t turning into he has told you the same story two or work, because one of the largest dol- impatience. Having worked for years three times, a story that always has to phin slaughters in the world happens as an animal trainer and underwater do with dolphins. “The dolphin’s smile right around the corner, and no one stuntman on more than a dozen televi- is nature’s greatest deception,” is one of cares.” sion shows and movies, O’Barry is no his favorite lines. For his final act of the morning, stranger to the elaborate preparations Since The Cove became a critical O’Barry ushered the Australians to a required for film’s illusion. Nor is he success at the Sundance Film Festival dome where visitors can walk into a innocent about how to use the media in January 2009, O’Barry has given glass tunnel and stand beneath the dol- to take an obscure issue and make it a countless media tours of Taiji — the phins as they swim circles. He pointed cause célèbre: Watching the maneuver- small Japanese fishing village on the to a young dolphin swimming at its ing and remaneuvering of a camera picturesque Wakayama coast that, as mother’s side and let loose another bar- crew was just part of the business of he says, is “part Norman Rockwell and rage: “That baby will be here its whole saving dolphins. part Norman Bates.” The next stop life. It will never know the tides. It will “I’m talking to seven million on the tour for the 60 Minutes journal- never know what it’s like to hunt. It will people,” O’Barry said, referring to the ists was the Taiji Whale Museum or, be bored to death.” average number of weekly viewers of as O’Barry tells reporters, “a whaling On the way back to the entrance, Australia’s 60 Minutes. “I’m very con- museum that celebrates the killing of past a small kiosk selling barbequed scious of that.” dolphins and whales.” whale meat for ¥500 (“What’s that The producer said they were ready In a country known for its cutting about?” O’Barry said. “You can eat and O’Barry let out a little sigh, as he edge technology, the Taiji Whale Mu- whale meat while watching a whale almost always does before answering seum is a crude affair. The tanks where show.”), the 60 Minutes crew got caught questions. Then, just as characteristi- the dolphins live are tiny and there are up in the scene of Japanese girls cally, he performed with gusto one of cracks in the concrete amphitheater. snapping cell phone photos as they his well-polished raps. The place is an easy target for O’Barry, fed a trio of pilot whales. Left alone, “You see those tarps?” he asked, who has spent most of the past 40 years O’Barry wandered to the lagoon where motioning to the rolls of green cloth on an international crusade to halt the a solitary orca spends most of its time coiled above where the local fisher- captivity of dolphins. listlessly bobbing. His shoulders sagged men stab dolphins to death. “They’re He led the 60 Minutes crew to the as he sat, chin in his hands, staring at covering up. It’s a cover up. They say main arena, where a small crowd the orca. It looked like all of the energy this is their tradition and their culture, watched the first dolphin show of the had drained from him. but this begs the question: What are day. “They have nowhere to go and “This stays with me for days,” he they hiding? Are they ashamed of their nothing to do — it’s cruel and un- said on the way out. “I’ll have a hang- tradition and culture?” usual,” he said. “The only way out is over after looking at this stuff.”

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“He sees it from their perspective,” programs at resorts. His convert’s zeal is documentaries pack such adrenaline. O’Barry’s wife, Helene, told me later. fueled by the emotional attachments he The film — and the media at- “He feels what they feel. He feels a lot has had with individual dolphins over tention it has generated — has been of anguish, and you can see it in his the years, both as a trainer and, later, as a huge boost to O’Barry’s efforts. eyes when he is looking at the dolphins. he worked to return them to the wild. Since the film came out, more than And it’s just all those sleepless nights, For O’Barry, the dolphin hunt in Taiji 430,000 people have signed an on- sleepless in Taiji. It’s such a nightmare, isn’t just killing — it’s murder. line petition calling for the Japanese you can’t even imagine it.” “With most documentaries you Fisheries Agency to prohibit the killing. need a hook, an emotional hook, some- Nearly 300,000 people have “friended” he Cove opens with O’Barry giving thing that will carry your narrative all O’Barry on Facebook. The town of This Taiji tour and — even through the way through,” said Louie Psihoyos, Broome, Australia briefly suspended its a series of detours into the Minamata director of The Cove. “Ric was a perfect sister city relationship with Taiji, creat- mercury poisoning of the 1950s, hu- choice for me for a protagonist.” ing a minor diplomatic dustup. mans’ fascination with dolphins, and O’Barry’s complex history, com- O’Barry told me, “The Cove defines Japanese food culture — keeps him bined with some unorthodox story- the issue. If a journalist has seen the at the film’s emotional center. This telling, has made the movie a darling movie, I don’t have to explain to them works well because O’Barry’s story is so among reviewers. The New York Times why dolphin captivity is wrong. They novelistic: the lone man on a search for called it “an exceptionally well-made get it. That’s a game-changer for me.” self and meaning. O’Barry, as the film documentary that unfolds like a spy Lincoln O’Barry, Ric’s 37-year-old lays out, started his career as the trainer thriller”; Time said it’s “slick and son who has worked closely with him for the five dolphins that starred in the smart.” According to Hollywood blog- over the years, said that the film has 1960s series Flipper. The popular televi- gers, the film is on the short list to get been a “tipping point” for his dad’s sion show played a large role in creating an Academy Award nomination for efforts, and that “we just need a little the modern affection for dolphins, and Best Documentary. push to get over the edge.” Lincoln is so, in a way, O’Barry is responsible for The Cove departs from conventional currently working with the Discovery the rise of the dolphin entertainment documentaries by being a movie about Channel to produce a television series industry. the making of a movie. Near the start about Ric and Taiji modeled on the But after working as a dolphin train- of the film, O’Barry tells Psihoyos that show Whale Wars. er for nearly a decade, O’Barry realized to stop the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, The tsunami of international at- with a shock that what he had been do- the world needs to see and hear what is tention is a core part of Ric O’Barry’s ing was wrong. One day in 1970, after happening there. But the local fisher- strategy of gaiatsu, the Japanese word the television show had ended, O’Barry men — pissed off at the intruding for “external pressure.” The more was called to the Miami Seaquarium, Westerners — have set up a round-the- people who see the film and sign the where he found Kathy, one of the clock defense. So Psihoyos assembles a petition, the more likely it is that the Flipper dolphins, sick in the water. The team of divers and camouflage experts Japanese will halt the hunt. “The Cove animal died in his arms and sank to the to penetrate the cove and get the in- is gaiatsu on a massive scale,” O’Barry bottom of the tank. At that moment, criminating footage. likes to say. At the same time, he is O’Barry decided to commit his life The result is a cross between Free well aware that gaiatsu is insufficient, to freeing dolphins. In the beginning Willy and Mission: Impossible. Many of and that the dolphin killing won’t end of his 1989 memoir, Behind the Dolphin the scenes are shot in the eerie green until there is an outcry within Japan Smile, he wrote: “I wanted people to re- of night vision goggles or the spookier to halt the practice. “The real change alize that it was wrong to own dolphins, luminous black-and-silver of infrared has to come from the inside of Japan,” and even worse, if possible, to make lenses. Handheld cameras put the Lincoln said. them do silly tricks.… With the death viewer at the center of the action as But generating a popular revolt of Kathy, the dolphin I most dearly Psihoyos’s crew undertakes repeated against the hunt won’t be easy, at least loved, [I was on] a pilgrimage to try to sorties to place hidden cameras and judging by the reception to The Cove at undo at least in part some of the mess I microphones. The suspense builds until a September screening at the Foreign had made of things.” the team gets what it came for: grue- Correspondents Club in Tokyo. “The O’Barry believes he’s to blame for some images of the local fishermen problem with making gestures in civil the dolphins at the Taiji Whale Muse- capturing dolphins for sale to aquatic disobedience, whether political demon- um, the tanks at some 150 similar dol- parks and then, the next morning, strations or environmental statements,” phinariums, the swim-with-the-dolphins stabbing dozens of them to death. Few O’Barry wrote in Behind the Dolphin

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Smile, “is that they depend on others for their meaning.” The same could be said for the filmmaking. What a Western audience might see as a clarion call against animal abuse, the Japa- nese view as cultural imperialism. The press screening had been organized by Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project — which has courtesy Oceanic Preservation Society employed O’Barry for the last three years — as a way to generate advance buzz for the film’s public debut at the Tokyo Film Festival. During the show- ing, the audience responded well to the film. But in a press conference after the movie, the correspondents’ ques- tions turned sharp as they demanded to know whether the animal rights issue would sway the Japanese, many of whom don’t see a distinction between eating a dolphin and eating a cow. A The documentary The Cove is like Free Willy meets Mission: Impossible. reporter from The Times of London asked: “Is there a difference between the truth. And the truth is that dolphin ic Barry O’Feldman (he changed hunting Bambi and hunting Flipper?” meat is tainted with mercury.” Rhis name in the mid-eighties, to O’Barry is hypersensitive about the The reporters kept asking about boost his showbiz career) grew up on charge of cultural imperialism and goes animal rights, but O’Barry stuck to his Miami Beach. His father owned a place to great lengths to make clear that the message. Then he engaged in a bit of called the Biscayne Restaurant, and vast majority of Japanese are not in- theater. “If you find that dolphin meat Ric spent most of his childhood in the volved in the hunt and don’t even know is not toxic, I’ll go away and never water or on the sand. He remembers about it. “If you lived in a small town come back,” he offered. “But if it is his fascination for dolphins coming in America,” he said to me, “and you toxic, then print that.” As he said this, early: “I became attracted when I was had a group of Japanese showing up to he held up a package of dolphin meat about three feet tall, standing on Miami protest something, it would be outra- from a grocery store. The photog- Beach…. That was during World War geous.” Imagine if dozens of Japanese raphers, who mostly had been still, II, and my mom told me stories about activists and hordes of international jumped up and filled the room with the how dolphins had saved pilots who media descended on, say, Camden, flutter of shutters snapping. had been shot down. You never heard Maine and demanded to know why the Many of the reporters left the room of other wild animals saving humans. locals eat bacon. unconvinced. “Maybe it’s just an anti- There’s something incredible about At the Correspondents Club screen- sushi campaign,” a veteran journalist that. It’s communication.” ing, O’Barry was well prepared for this for one of Japan’s most influential When he was five-years-old, he line of argument, which he has sought newspapers said to me. found a one-dollar bill on the beach to address since he first traveled to Still, the film was having an effect. and bought a pair of swimming Japan in 1976 in an effort to ease the Just a week earlier, the fishermen in goggles. The ability to see underwater Greenpeace-led boycott of the nation. Taiji had driven a pod of dolphins into opened up a new world. “Keep your O’Barry insisted that more important the cove and had captured a few dozen head underwater, and everything slows than the abuse of dolphins was the fact to sell to the marine entertainment in- down,” he told me. “It’s quiet, peaceful, that dolphin meat has dangerous con- dustry. But instead of killing the rest for slow motion. The whole world should centrations of mercury. “It’s not an ani- meat — their usual tactic — the fisher- be underwater.” mal rights issue — it’s a human rights men decided to let them go. Seventy At 16, he lied about his age, enlisted issue,” he said. “It’s about people’s right dolphins returned to the sea. in the Navy, and served five years, to know. The Cove will do what the Japa- mostly in the Mediterranean, during nese media have failed to do — report which time he learned to dive. After his

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discharge, he found a job with Art Mc- tion, unlike the dolphinarium. You do a intelligent and helpful dolphin — Flip- Kee, a South Florida treasure hunter. half hour with them, and then they get per and Flipper’s New Adventure — had McKee had found a measure of fame bored and swim away. It’s wonderful, I been hits already, and Tors, along with and fortune when he discovered the don’t know how to describe it. I go back an underwater director named Ricou Capitana el Rui, a Spanish galleon that there whenever I can, just to remind Browning, had a deal with NBC to do sunk in 1773, and used some of the loot myself why I’m doing this.” a sitcom. One day, O’Barry ran into to build McKee’s Museum of Sunken Working for McKee was exciting, Browning and the two bonded over Treasure, which he built out of coral. but not lucrative. With McKee’s help, dolphin-training methods. O’Barry Working for McKee, O’Barry O’Barry found a steadily paying gig talked his way onto the show as an ani- had his first intimate experience with at the Miami Seaquarium. He started mal trainer and dolphin caretaker. dolphins. On an expedition to locate out on the aquarium’s boat that sailed It was a heady experience for a a Spanish ship that had sunk in the around the Atlantic and Caribbean young man. “You know the house that Bahamian Out Islands, the treasure gathering species, including dolphins, the family on the TV show lived in? seekers found themselves amid a huge for the exhibits. Eventually, O’Barry got That was my house,” he said. “There pod of spotted dolphins. The divers a promotion to work at the aquarium’s was a two- or three- acre section of the jumped out of the water, fearing sharks. main tank, feeding the fishes and sharks Seaquarium where no one was. Just O’Barry, who was on the boat and while visitors watched from the other me and the dolphins.” The show was could see the animals’ signature dorsal side of the glass. Promoted again as un- a success, its lilting theme song soon fins, jumped in. The dolphins came derstudy to the performers who worked ingrained in the popular culture. The toward him to play. the dolphin shows, soon O’Barry was job paid well and gave O’Barry a bit of “You really need to get under the training the dolphins himself. Hollywood status. He found himself in water, to be in clear water, to see them His big break came when Ivan Tors, the middle of a vibrant cultural scene. in all of their majesty,” he said. “When producer of Sea Hunt, approached the “I grew up in this incredible commu- you go there, the dolphins initiate the Seaquarium about filming a television nity of artists and musicians,” Lincoln contact and they control the interac- series there. Two feature films about an O’Barry told me. “The Mamas and courtesy The Dolphin Project

Ric O’Barry worked for several years as a dolphin trainer for the popular TV series Flipper. “Those were wonderful, halcyon days,” he said. “I had an XKE Jaguar, three Porsches, a red Ford Thunderbird, and a lot of girlfriends.”

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Papas lived on my street. Fred Neil but the whole environment. Ric’s hero’s felt afraid. “Let’s say somebody decided lived on my street. Tennessee Williams, journey is one that I think our whole to do something stupid,” he told me Richie Havens lived on my street. So society is going to have to make.” when we were with the 60 Minutes crew we were always surrounded by dolphins on the bluff. “They could easily say, and music.” David Crosby was a sailing nimal rights organizations have ‘Hey it was an accident. He fell.’” buddy; Joni Mitchell came by the Flipper Aknown about the annual hunt in The years spent by himself, the frus- lagoon to play music for Kathy and the Taiji since 1979, when a filmmaker tration of trying to convince the world other Flipper dolphins. The producer shot footage of local fishermen driving of an injustice that he feels so acutely, Michael Lang (Lincoln’s godfather) was dolphins and melon-headed whales into have left a mark on O’Barry. He carries a regular at the O’Barry house and, the shore for slaughter. But the issue with him a loneliness, the weight of a according to at least one telling, the didn’t attract much energy until 2003, martyr. He is convinced that were it not idea for Woodstock was hatched at their when Sea Shepherd — the group of for him and a small group of allies, the kitchen table. activists known for their confrontations Taiji scandal would fade away. “What O’Barry said, “I look back on with Japanese whalers in the Southern I do is, I start looking around: Well, the Flipper experience — those were Ocean — sent a crew to investigate. who the hell is going to do this if I stay wonderful, halcyon days. I had an While in Taiji, two Sea Shepherd activ- home?” he said. “Will the government XKE Jaguar, three Porsches, a red Ford ists jumped into the cove and attempted do it, any government? No. Will the Thunderbird, and a lot of girlfriends.” to cut the net penning the dolphins in. marine mammal scientists of the world But as he spent more time with They were arrested, jailed for 23 days, do it? No. Will the multi-billion-dollar the dolphins, he started to question and then deported. captivity industry and WAZA [World the righteousness of the enterprise. That same year, O’Barry, at a sum- Association of Zoos and Aquariums] He secretly admired the dolphins that mit hosted by Earth Island’s Inter- do it? No. The animal welfare com- resisted learning tricks. “About halfway national Marine Mammal Project to munity? They do a lot of good things, through the TV series I really started discuss strategies for freeing captive but they’re not doing this. So who is having second thoughts about cap- whales and dolphins, was recruited going to do this? You use the process of tivity,” he said. He was unprepared, for the Taiji mission: “I was hoping elimination: We’re the only hope.” however, to make a big fuss. Things someone else would raise their hand,” This single-minded commitment were going too well to ruin the party. “I O’Barry told me, “but no one did. So has won O’Barry a great deal of remember complaining to everybody: I raised my hand and said I would go. respect. As Sea Shepherd founder Paul ‘This is not right, you know.’ But I And we literally passed the hat and the Watson told me, “Ric is one of the didn’t actually do anything.” next day I was on the plane to Taiji. On most focused people in the movement After the television series wrapped the way back… I called Dave Phillips — knowing what his objective is and up, O’Barry wasn’t sure what do. He [director of IMMP and a co-director of pursuing it. And his objective is freeing bummed around Miami. He traveled Earth Island Institute] and said, ‘This is dolphins and stopping the capture and to India. He mostly kept to himself. too big for any one group.’” killing of dolphins around the world. Then, the death of Kathy gave him So O’Barry and Phillips pulled And there is no one who has done that new purpose. With folk singer Fred together a number of organizations — with more passion than he has.” Neil he founded The Dolphin Project, Earth Island Institute, In Defense of For O’Barry, who describes himself which was dedicated to investigating Animals, a Swiss group called Ocean as “reclusive,” the often-solitary strug- dolphin consciousness and rehabilitat- Care, Animal Welfare Institute, and gle is bearable. But the constant conflict ing dolphins into the wild. Having been the UK-based Campaign Whale — to takes its toll. Although he has come a dolphin trainer for years, O’Barry form the Save Japan Dolphins Coali- to terms with the fact that battling is was now committed to the idea of un- tion and pay for O’Barry to expose and part of his job description, he is not a training them. stop the dolphin capture and killing. natural fighter. If some people seek out “His story of redemption paral- O’Barry traveled repeatedly to Taiji drama because it flatters their sense of lels our own culture’s,” Psihoyos said. over the next two years. He spent most self-importance, O’Barry is not one of “The Western culture, we are like him. of his time hiding in the thickets above them. “The whole job, the whole effort, We are like he was. We have material the cove, trying to get video proof of it’s all about conflict,” Helene, his wife, success, you know, we have plenty of the slaughter. He pulled all-nighters in said. “It’s the thing he likes the least. He money. But we are going to have to turn the rain and spent long days in the sun. doesn’t want to see conflict himself.” our back on the way we get our energy, Working alone, and verbally threatened I witnessed how confrontation on the way we treat, not just dolphins, by the local fishermen, he sometimes impacts O’Barry the night of The Cove

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screening at the press club. Normally, court, charged with trespassing. During That was certainly true throughout O’Barry exudes a calmness even when the trial, O’Barry showed an instinct much of the 1980s, when O’Barry was everyone around him is in motion; as for political theater that has served him trying to rehabilitate dolphins in Israel, his Japanese translator put it, he is the well in subsequent decades. He had Brazil, and Central America. He was eye at the center of the cyclone. But in noticed that the chief of police was a living hand-to-mouth working as a the hours leading up to the showing, he devout Christian, and when it came stuntman and extra, and what money had a difficult time sitting still. He later time to enter his plea, he said “guilty,” he had went straight to The Dolphin confided to me, “sometimes the stress then asked if he could read from the Project. His commitment was straining of anticipating the battle is worse than police chief ’s Bible. He opened to his relationships. “The issues, it’s always the battle itself.” That night, the battle Genesis and, with a flourish, read about the issues,” O’Barry told me. “That’s felt bad enough, and after the fiery how God created “great whales” and how I lost my first family. It was a trian- Q&A his stomach was “topsy-turvy.” “saw that it was good.” The capture of gle: me and Martha and the dolphins. And so while his team gathered their dolphins, he said, violated God’s law. And triangles never work. That’s how it equipment, O’Barry slipped unnoticed The judge charged him with a five- was with Lincoln. I was supposed to be out a back door. His entourage was left dollar fine and ordered him on the next there for a school event, and instead I wondering what had happened to him. plane. Charlie Brown remained in his was off in Australia.” pen. But the stunt succeeded in spark- Lincoln acknowledges that his ing awareness about dolphin captivity. father was often absent, but he doesn’t “I don’t know how I free The Miami Herald ran a front page story harbor any resentment. “I wasn’t really headlined, “Trainer of Flipper in Flap; aware that it was an unusual situation these dolphins — but I know Can’t Get Dolphin to Flee.” Life maga- until I was much older,” he said. “I that if I didn’t show up, it zine covered the episode. don’t think he should have done any- The Bimini action established a thing differently. People like that have would never happen.” hallmark of O’Barry’s method — in- to sacrifice everything in their life.” stinct and emotion first. He is con- As an escape, O’Barry took up oil vinced that the secret to his successes painting. Then “the issues” began to ’Barry’s activist career started is his mere presence. Paul Watson told intrude onto the canvas. “The first Oinauspiciously. Immediately after me, “Ric is an example of what Woody series of paintings I did was a woman Kathy died in his arms, he hopped on a Allen once said, that 90 percent of suc- in a bathtub,” he said. “The second plane and flew to the island of Bimini, cess is just being there.” painting, there is a towel hanging out in the Bahamas, where he knew that For O’Barry, planning is a second- of the bathtub, and I painted a little a marine lab kept a solitary dolphin ary concern, something that he often embroidered dolphin on the towel. named Charlie Brown. O’Barry’s plan leaves to others. Discussions of tactics The next painting, there is a dolphin in was simple: As part of the first Earth and strategy don’t interest him: “I the bathtub with the woman. And the Day celebration he would don a green don’t always know what to do, but I next painting, the woman’s gone. So I armband, boat out to the pen, cut the know you have to at least show up.… started painting dolphins.” In 1990, he mesh holding the dolphin in, and usher I respond to information. I get a call: and Martha got a divorce. it to freedom. His civil disobedience There are six dolphins in a cage in Today, O’Barry is just as commit- would call attention to the plight of Haiti. I get pictures. I get on a plane ted, but he has found more of a bal- captive dolphins around the world. and I go. I don’t know how I free these ance between his work and his family. But everything went wrong. When dolphins — but I know that if I didn’t “When he is with his family, he is really he finished cutting the wire cage, it show up, it would never happen.” with his family,” said Helene, whom he collapsed on top of him and pinned This persistence often has led to married in 1999. “Our five-year-old him to the seafloor, nearly drowning personal sacrifices. Mark Lavelle, an old daughter forces him out of this world. him. Then the tide went out, leaving his friend who has known him since “his Going for bike rides or going swim- boat stranded inside the pen. Worse, he pillow was full of receipts he was never ming. That has meant a lot to him.” couldn’t get Charlie Brown to escape; going to get reimbursed for,” told me: The burning guilt that once drove the dolphin just kept swimming around “He’s a person who doesn’t compro- him has cooled, and what was once the space it had known for years. The mise his beliefs. I don’t know how he obsession has made way for a steadier mission felt like a total failure. does it. It’s just over and over and over. emotion, a sorrow that he refuses to let The next morning, O’Barry was It’s just tiring, and he doesn’t spend become unhappiness. Among social in the Bimini jail, and a week later in enough time with his family.” change activists, there are those driven

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by anger and those spurred by sadness. is, in a way, performing a role he has I glanced over, he was staring down at The angry ones often become brittle written for himself — the redeemed man his lap, his hands limp, much like when and sharp as the injustices of the world working to expunge his sins. he was looking at the orca at the whale grind into cynicism. Those who pursue Which is not to say that he is insin- museum. “This guy works for the presi- justice from a feeling of sadness are cere. Only that, like many public figures, dent,” he nearly moaned. “He’s going more likely to achieve a kind of grace, O’Barry has crafted a persona, and this to think I’m so rude.” an unflinching recognition of the world persona — with its parable-perfect story This is O’Barry’s central contradic- as it is coupled with faith that it can and snappy one-liners — gives him an tion: He hates to be disliked, yet he has change for the better. O’Barry fits in armor that protects him from the world. committed himself to a line of work in the latter category. “Ric hasn’t changed which he is destined to cause antago- at all these years,” Lavelle said. “He nism. He may be leading the battle to

never got jaded.” At the same time, he Ry Hawley stop the dolphin killing in Taiji, but has come to peace with the idea that he he is a reluctant warrior. It is only an may not see the victory he has sought. ethic of service that keeps him going. “There’s a couple of lifetimes of work “He has a very hard time saying no, my out there,” O’Barry told me. dad,” Lincoln said. This natural patience is what makes Friends and family are split on O’Barry good at deprogramming whether he will keep up the breakneck dolphins before releasing them into pace he has maintained for decades. “I the wild. “We are both kind of quiet think he’s got a couple of years in him, people, so we get along really well be- and that’s it,” Lincoln said. “To a lot of cause of that,” Helene said. “Our best people he seems like a superhero, but times have been when we are living in even superheroes need a day off every the jungle together or living on islands, once in a while.” doing this work he so obviously loves. Others aren’t so sure. “One of the And he’s an expert at that. He’s so in things Ric has demonstrated is that you tune with the dolphins. He doesn’t feel don’t retire from this movement,” Wat- the need that a lot of people have — to son said. “You are in it for life. Eighty, O’Barry at the Taiji Whale Museum own them. He gives them their space.” ninety or whatever, he will still be in it. Which is, of course, not at all like Like many people who are accus- He’s the kind of person who changes the jostling he has experienced during tomed to being the center of attention, the world. That’s the only thing that his years of campaigning. The world of O’Barry is a mix of the withdrawn changes the world — individual pas- people is not his element. and the eager. He has the instincts of sion. Governments don’t change things. “If my detractors knew how much an introvert; “I’ve never been accused Big organizations don’t change things. I like staying home and watering the of making chit-chat,” he wrote in his Individuals change things.” bamboo, they would probably pay me memoir. At the same time, he is an On our second evening in Taiji, half a million dollars to stay home affirmation-seeker; “I’ve always liked I asked O’Barry what his plans were and water the bamboo,” he said. “My people and wanted them to like me,” for the future. It had been a long day, favorite thing is watering the plants. I he also wrote. It’s a combination ripe including press interviews and a tense love watching the bamboo grow in slow for vulnerability. Which is why the per- standoff between the media and the motion.” formance is important: It allows him to local fishermen who had been selling stay committed to “the issues” without whale meat at the dock. But O’Barry n our first conversation, O’Barry told burning out. was in fine spirits, singing softly to him- Ime, “I’ve spent much of the last 40 I glimpsed O’Barry’s need to be self, as he does when he’s happy. years with people who hate me. Instead, liked one morning in Taiji. He was “I’m coming back,” he said. “You I could be at home with people who using Skype to talk with an official bet I’m coming back. We’ve got these love me.” It’s a phrase that, along with in the office of the president of the bastards on the run.” the bamboo line, appears often in news Dominican Republic. They had just Then he put his car in drive and articles. These repetitions could be started discussing the controversy over headed for the cove, just to check on mistaken for an older man’s habit. Or importing captured dolphins when the things one last time. n they could be the long-rehearsed lines call got dropped. O’Barry tried unsuc- Jason Mark is editor of Earth Island Journal. of a well-played part. Because O’Barry cessfully to re-initiate the call. When

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