Care2 had a staff outing last weekend to see The Cove, a new documentary that sheds light on the atrocious dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan. It's an issue that Care2 members have taken action on before; just this year, Care2's partner Blue Voice hand-delivered more than 5,000 letters from Care2 members, demanding that the slaughter be stopped, to the Japanese delegate to the International Whaling Commission at their meeting in Portugal. And we've collected more than 150,000 signatures on other petitions against Japan's dolphin killing.

The Cove shows how Ric O'Barry and Louis Psihoyos secretly document Japanese fishermen corralling unsuspecting dolphins into a small cove in Taiji that's hidden from public view. The fishermen separate out the best specimens to be sold to dolphinariums -- and cruelly slaughter the other 23,000 for meat, which is then sold across fish markets in Japan, often labeled as “whale meat.”  And few people in Japan know it's happening -- or that the meat they're eating contains toxic levels of mercury.

The Cove is a documentary with the suspense and thrill of an Oceans 11 style “Special Ops” team. The New York Times has described it as, “unfolds like a spy thriller...one of the most audacious and perilous operations in the history of the conservation movement."  O'Barry was once the dolphin trainer for the 1960s TV series Flipper .  After spending years with dolphins, he realized how terrible human captivity is for these intelligent creatures, and became one of the world's leading dolphin activists. Psihoyos is a top nature photographer and founder of the Oceanic Preservation Society. The rest of the team is made up of underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers, adrenaline junkies and  world-class free divers. Utilizing state-of-the art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in  fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide.

Watching the team in action is enough to make anyone want to be a dolphin activist -- and that's where Care2 comes in. We partnered with the production company, Take Part, to develop a petition targeting President Obama, Vice President Biden and Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki, asking them to address the dolphin slaughter in Japan. The petition is also available in Japanese for Japanese citizens to sign and send letters to the Prime Minister and Minister of Health. At the end of The Cove, there's a message urging people to take action, either on their web-enabled mobile phones with the mobile version of the PetitionSite or by visiting a URL with a link to the action. And it's been a success so far -- already, more than 20,000 people have signed the petition.

We also created widgets in both English and Japanese that contain all of the signers to the action and more information on The Cove. You can paste the widget on your Facebook or MySpace profiles or your blog and encourage your friends to take action, too. You'll get the opportunity to grab the widget code after you've signed the petition.

If you haven't seen The Cove yet, I urge you to do so -- and bring friends with you so they feel the same drive to become an activist for our planet that you do. The film is a provocative mix of investigative  journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery that adds up to an urgent plea for hope. 

This is a movie that will make a difference and shut down the dolphin slaughter – but only if we all take action, sign the petition, and make our voices heard.